Sha'uri of Earth
by Nadie2
Summary: This is an AU story in which Daniel takes Sha'uri (Sha're) back to earth with him instead of staying on Abydos. The relationship between Daniel and Sha'uri develops as she learns to navigate modern American society. The first chapter is mostly a recap of the movie from Sha'uri's point of view. The rest will be more original, and eventually dive into the series proper.
1. The servant of the god

Warning: I turn super nerd in this story. If you have never wondered about details of Abydonian culture this story (and particularly this chapter) is probably not for you. That being said it does have a strong story line and character development. It's not like it's going to read like Anthropologist notes.

Also suspend your disbelief. It's written in English with a smattering of my own reconstruction of Abydonian (some copied from the movie, others modern Arabic, a touch of Nigerian one word of Hebrew and still others are scholars best guess as spoken Egyptian). But it's written by Sha'uri, so you're going to have to pretend the whole thing is Abydonian. As a Stargate fan you're used to using your imagination with languages though, right?

I like to come here at dusk. Just in case I can actually see Omm's spirit returning to her grave. It's supposed to return to her body every night, and leave again each morning to connect with the great life force. I believed this as literal truth when I was a small girl, and Omm had first been entombed. Now, I'm not so foolish. Either there are no such things as spirits, or their coming and going cannot be seen or felt.

I'm not sure if it matters which is the truth.

But I like to talk to my Omm, even if she can't hear me. There are questions which I dare not ask my father. A woman's place is to listen and obey. I fear Abba is thinking of marriage. If I had been anyone else besides the chief's daughter I could choose my own husband.* As it is, Abba will choose for me. He is cold enough to use me a political jackal and hound. He stopped believing in love when Omm died. If Omm had lived she would have ensured I'd married a man of my own choosing. Or at least one who would love me as fiercely as a sandstorm in the dry season or the river itself during flood.

When you visit a grave of someone you love you're supposed to pray for them. You're supposed to pray to their sprit and the god Ra. But I refuse to pray to him. He's the reason she's dead. Ra comes to Abydos whenever it pleases him. And he takes what and who he wants. He destroys what he wants and he kills what he wants. And if you try to stop him, he kills you too.

Ra likes to have little children serve him. Often they are taken at six or seven and returned when they have grown to sixteen or seventeen. The ones who return… they are never the same; they've seen way too much. The last one never even talked again after coming back. Most of them aren't that bad, but it's rare for them to lead functional lives complete with jobs, and spouses, and friends.

So, when Ra demanded my little sister, Omm said no, and so he killed them both. He killed Eshe first, making Omm watch. Then he let her know we were watching as he kills her, and I think that hurt her more than the actual death. As horrible as it was to lose them… sometimes I wonder if Eshe isn't better off this way. But mom certainly wasn't.

"Sha'uri," my brother, Skaara, says.

"A moment," I beg. Skaara was the youngest of our siblings. When Omm died I had witnessed my ninth river flood, Eshe her sixth, and Skaara had barely seen two. Abba hired a woman to care for us of course, but she was careless when his back was turned. I acted as his mother apart from the nourishment the woman provided. I protected him, held him, loved him, and taught him. Taught him even the forbidden reading and writing as Omm had taught me.

I loved my brother. But once in a great while I wanted to be something other than sister.

"You feel Omm's sprit?" he asks quietly. My brother can never go long without talking.

The question annoys me. Mostly because I don't want to lie, and I also don't want to discourage my brother's faith. I nod without commitment and stand up, brushing the sand from my kalasiris. He misses my mother too, I know. But it is a different kind of missing that I feel. He doesn't remember her.

"Abba has called for you," Skaara tells me.

"You ought to have told me!" I exclaim. He smiles in a way that reminds me he tried too. "Where is Abba?"

"There are strangers approaching the mines from the pyramid."

"Company?" I ask.

"Tau'ri," he says, slipping a clumsy Jaffa word into our language. Many of the children have this bad habit. Ra and his Jaffa are coming more frequently than ever before. So what was once a special language to break for festivals, feasts, and when Ra came, is slipping word by word into the language of our people.

"Tau'ri?" I repeat, stunned. People come from the pyramid every now and then. But no one has visited from the Tau'ri for generation after generation. "Are you sure?"

"Abba thinks so," Skaara says with a shrug.

I take off running across the desert, but I soon change to a walk. It's hard to run when your feet are always sinking into the sand, and it's not something that I've done since I was a little girl. In fact, I don't think I've ran since Omm died.

I'm a little disappointed when I reach the mines. Everyone is just working as usual. And I know for a fact that none of them are from the Tau'ri. Skaara resumes his place in the central tent. His job is to supervise the workers, and he's really good at it. It's a tough job, because you have to meet a certain output by the time Ra comes. Except you never know when he might come, and you never know when he might decide to raise the output randomly. So you have to produce as much naquada as you possibly can. The mine operator before my brother, and the one before him - back when I was a little girl, they both did it by being really cruel to the miners. But my brother does it the opposite way. He gives the miners a ridiculous amount of breaks throughout the day. He gives the ones who mine the most an extra portion of food each day. And he knows every one of their names.

I'm so proud of him.

Abba is nowhere to be seen, and I am tempted to return to my post among the woman. And then I hear a worker shout, "Chien pe-ow. Mieu!"

My brother joins in the call and everyone else stops working. Then slowly four men walk down from the top of the hill. I move back a bit, further into the crowd. I'm feeling a bit odd being the only woman greeting the travelers.

Their skins range from light to dark, though most are lighter than even the fairest Egyptian. They are wearing clothes of a very strange hue. Three of their clothes are close to the color that our crops are when we grow them. But no matter what we do to the fabric it turns to the color of sand when we spin it, unless we dye it with the roots of the Matter plant.** But that only gave us the color we used in Abba's robes. The remaining visitor wears pants of the color of crops, but a shirt the color of the night's sky. All of them have their eyes darkened far better than any protective make-up can do. I'm not sure how they can see. Their whole eyes seem to be covered. They are holding something strange in their arms. All but one of them… his hands are empty.

The empty handed man says something to one of the miners in a language I do not understand. Suddenly the minor turns to the crowd proclaiming, "He serves the eye." He kneels down. The crowd behind him follows suit, falling to their knees with their arms stretched before them.

The one who wears the shirt the color of night bends down and touches my brother's hand. Skaara becomes terrified, and begins to run toward my father's litter. He screams Abba's name the whole time. I'm glad Abba has only a short ways to go to meet the visitors. The whole time Skaara is talking. And halfway there he runs out of things to say, so he begins to repeat himself. Abba makes a standard welcome speech, but it's pretty clear that the visitor's don't understand him.

Abba bows down and I and three other people are sent forward with the offer of a bowl of vipie. I go before the one without the hat, the one who is wearing the necklace of the eye of Ra, the one who tries to talk to us. I give him a small bow. He flashes me a wide smile. He drinks from the bowl at its proper end. The other's turn it sideways instead.

"Mmm..." he says, like we say after a delicious meal. Then he says something in words that I do not understand.

I bow again, and he keeps nodding and smiling and saying those words over and over under his breath.

We servers away and he bows before Abba. Then he opens up part of that strange plant-colored clothing and removes something that is long and thin. He makes a lot of noise with it before he holds it up to his nose and smells, again making the 'mmm…' sound. Then he gives it to Abba who smells it before putting some into his mouth.

Abba tells him it is very good. And the newcomer repeats the words. Abba makes a motion for them to follow him, and we form a caravan moving from the mines to the city proper.

As we walk, the one who wears the eye of Ra makes a loud sound with his nose into a small piece of very white cloth. Nebeh grabs the cloth from him as soon as it is returned to his pocket. I laugh at how oblivious our visitor is to the thief. Nebeh is not known as a skillful pick-pocket.

Skaara grabs the fabric from his friend, scolding him. He then hands it back to the visitor, who looks around, quite confused by what exactly has gone on.

The visitor catches my eyes for a moment. But I cannot read what he is thinking, the black before his eye hides all of his thoughts.

We enter the House of Meeting and Abba gives a command to raise the curtain revealing the eye of Ra. We all bow to it, but the visitors make no motion of showing respect. The visitor who wears the eye of Ra and the one who wears a shirt of night talk for a bit. The one who wears a shirt of night touches the eye of Ra which still sits on the other man's neck. Perhaps this is how gods show respect for one another.

"Ra?" the man with the necklace asks. Abba looks up at him with much amazement. But before he can say a word the arghul make a low sound alerting us that a sand storm is coming. People move about with their assigned preparations. When we close the large doors the visitors become very alarmed. They rush to the people who are closing the door and grab them and hit their heads against the door. Then the strange things they are carrying make a very loud sound.

Abba runs toward them begging them to stop. The one with the necklace is not far behind him, and my brother is not far behind him. Skaara points up, and tries to explain the sandstorm to them. He takes the one with the night colored shirt up to show him the sand blowing toward us across the desert. When that man yells down to the other visitors they let the men they are holding go. Then the one with the necklace goes toward my father and repeats the word for sandstorm. He is trying to communicate more than any of the others.

We begin a festival in the house of meeting. The musicians come out and begin to play music. First, a somber one begging for the sandstorm to leave. Then one by one the musicians leaves the somber note and rises up in happy tales of great friendships.*** It's meant to influence visitors into becoming trade partners. But since these visitors don't understand the words, I don't think it's going to influence them.

They place an Isbe**** before the visitors. The one with the necklace takes some meat out of the Isbe and places it in his mouth. Then he makes a strange sound saying "bababa". He turns to talk to the back shirted man next to him. I offer Abba a tray of food. As I rise the man with the necklace comes over to us. He kneels before Abba , and takes out the necklace which he has hidden under his clothing. Then he begins to draw the same symbol on the ground. Abba rushes to stop him and erase the symbol. Then Abba bids me to leave.

I know that something important is about to happen, so I don't go very far away. "Good son!" Abba calls him. They wrap a matter robe around his shoulders. My stomach twists. It could be worse, of course. I'd been preparing for worse. I did, after all, like the man with the necklace. But I only have a few minutes warning to prepare myself for the wedding. I have no mother to tell me the secrets of the married woman. To be sure, our nurse and my friends have let enough hints fall over the years that I think I can manage. But it is different than your mother sitting you down and telling you everything and making it sound special and important.

I go and put on the dress of a bride. I drape the veil over my face. As I enter the tent he barely looks at me. He's talking words that I do not understand, while he tries to put strange white coverings on his feet.

I lift off my veil, finding myself nearly shaking. He laughs; a nervous laugh. I slide the shoulders off my dress and for a minute he seems mesmerized. Then he stands up and pulls the shoulders back up. His fingers causes bumps to move like waves across my skin.

He speaks soft words and guides me toward the flap of the tent.

Rejection. All the things I'd been worried about since I heard I would be a bride, this one hadn't even occurred to me. What will life be like after I am rejected? Will my brother treat me the same? Most likely. Abba? Most certainly not. I would have failed him beyond all measure. And I would have disappointed a god.

What is wrong with me? Divorce is not unheard of, but it is rare enough on the wedding night. Was he not pleased with my sight? He seemed to like it as long as he looked upon me.*****

Abba turns when he sees us leaving the tent. "What have you done, good daughter? Have you offended our guest?" he asks me.

I shake my head, "No, I did not offend."

Abba falls down on his knees, "Please forgive, please forgive."

My husband puts his arm around me and shuts the flap of the tent. He guides me over to the bed.

"Daniel," he says.

Is he trying to name me? Or is that his word for wife? I point to myself, "Dan'yel?"

He points to himself again, and pauses to hide a necklace beneath his plant-colored clothes.

Dan'yel must be his name. "Sha'uri" I say, pointing to myself.

He slurs it a bit together as he says it, "Shauri."

I smile at him.

He smiles back. He tries to say something, but he ends up drawing in the sand. I look away. Look everywhere but there. If he is really a servant of Ra this has got to be a trick. It must be some clever way to force us to admit that we read and write. I'd rather my own husband not turn into my accuser.

Still, a lifetime is long to keep a secret, and I want to pass on knowledge of the written language to my own children.

He stops writing and begins to walk away. He peeks out of the tent. I correct his drawing. I erase the squiggle at the bottom, and add the single moon at the top. It's the symbol for his planet.

He gets very excited and says to me, "Earth." He points to his eye. He's asking if I have seen it before. I nod my head, and point to my eye. He extends his hand, and I put mine into his. They fit together. Omm once said that she knew Abba was the one, because their hands fit together.

I take him to a cave that my mother took me to as a child. We remove the rocks from the entrance together. He begins to read the words to himself. I stop him when I hear one I recognize - sort of. His pronunciation is off. I repeat the word correctly. He looks confused and says another word. I repeat the word, exaggerating the correction. He says it a few times to himself. He points to another spot on the wall and says a word horribly. I correct him again, and a grin breaks out on his face. One of his grins has the power to light my soul on fire. A lifetime with grins like that would be a privilege indeed.

I spend the next couple hours teaching him to speak our language. Then he reads me the history of my own people off of the walls. I thought I'd read the walls before. But I can assure you that they never told a story so well as when they told it from my husband's lips.

The other travelers came up behind them and he goes over to talk to them in his language. I felt lonely. It's like when you sit by a fire on a warm night. The night feels cold by comparison when you walk away from the flame. I wish I'd used the time to learn his language instead of him learning mine.

He goes to look an old rock that I've never been able to read. I think he must be able to read it, and that it must say something very sad indeed, judging by his face. Especially the piece that is crumbled to the floor.

The man with the shirt of night - Dan'yel calls him Oneel - takes the lead, and everyone follows after him. I don't know where they are going, but I feel like I'm not invited. I wrap the veil around my head and shoulders and watch them from the entrance to the cave. Dan'yel glances back at me, and I see - for the first time - a bit of love in his eyes. I return to my father's tent - the tent of my childhood, a little uncertain of exactly how married I am.

Hours later, Ra's death gliders suddenly leave the pyramid atop the pyramid and come over the city. They drop fire upon the city. No one ever survives the fire falling from the sky. But a little girl does. She just watched her mother die, and is about the age I was when I watched my mother die.

I gather her up into my arms, and hold her near to my chest, and I wipe at her dirty face.

My brother approaches and asks what happened. I tell him that Ra has punished us.

"Why?" he asks.

"What happened to Dan'yel?" I ask.

He is too distracted looking at the destruction to answer me. So I repeat it. Skaara doesn't answer. He just hangs his head. My heart breaks within me, and I begin to cry.

I return to the cave. I was only a wife for a few hours, before I became a widow. Those few hours I spent here. I touch the wall. I try to remember the story he told, using the wall as a prompt. But it isn't as good as my husband told it.

My brother comes to tell me the other visitors will be executed for starting a rebellion. He is calling me away, just like he did a day ago to tell me the visitors had come. Was that only a day? I am a different woman than I was then. The old Sha'uri would never do this.

I bid them to come. I will not let Ra kill the visitors who came with Dan'yel. Ra will take no more from me. I have to tell them what Dan'yel told me. Because I am the only one who knows, and life is short.

Dan'yel's story is powerful. I am only a few sentences in when Skaara goes and summons others. So, I find myself giving a battle speech to an army.

Omm, would you be proud?

Dan'yel is standing before the crowd. Dan'yel is not dead… at least anymore. From maiden to wife to widow to wife, all in the course of a few days. I am glad that I have little to do with this part of this mission. I would be too distracted to do much good. I am shocked that my husband has risen from the dead, and I'm terrified that I will lose him again.

Skaara uses a flash from the shiny lighter that Oneel gave him to attract Dan'yel's attention. When his eyes fall upon us in the crowd, Skaara lifts his coat to revel a weapon. Dan'yel readies the weapon of the gods as if he was going to fire upon his friends. But before he does he turns them on the guards. One powerful blast takes many of them to the ground. Skaara begins to fire his weapon which provides a much needed distraction. As the visitors run into the crowd I help to drape our clothing over them to help the blend in. At the edge of the camp Dan'yel and Oneel climb onto a Mastadge and ride off. The fighting continues. I want Dan'yel near me.

Once the fighting is done the rebels, as my brother has begun to call his group (in honor of the rebels from earth Dan'yel learned about on the wall), gather together in a cave. But Dan'yel and Oneel are missing. I try to remain calm passing out vipie and bread to those who come to us for refuge.

"Sha'uri, you worry for your husband," Skaara says.

I nod my head. "I will go and find them," he proclaims.

"No, I don't want you to risk yourself as well," I insist. But he is already out of the door.

It's much later when my brother and his men return with Oneel and Dan'yel. Dan'yel drops to the floor just inside of the cave. I offer him vipie. He's coughing so hard that he can barely drink it. Dan'yel manages to get the vipie down at my urging. Just about then Oneel begins to shout about something.

My Dan'yel begins talking in a voice that is tired and week. He's talking in his language, so I can't understand him. I stand up to get more vipie. The argument continues for some time. I'm hoping when it is all done, Dan'yel will tell me what it is all about. My father would not. I cannot imagine what my life would be like if I could not eavesdrop on my father. I hope I don't have to find out with my husband.

When we are alone, I ask Dan'yel, "What was the argument about?"

He leans back against the cave, "Ra has a bomb, a big bomb."

"What is a bomb?" I ask, because one English has word slipped in with his Abydonian.

He sighs, "It kills. It makes things explode."

"We have to stop him," I tell him.

"I know," he says, "He plans to send it to my world. So maybe this world, at least, is done hurting on our behalf," he says, quiet and guiltily.

"You have not hurt our world," I tell him. "You have freed it."

He looks at me with those giant blue eyes are filled with gratitude as they look at me through the transparent things which sit upon his nose.

Dan'yel leaves to go talk to Oneel after that, and I go to check on the supplies. As I am returning to the main chamber I hear some laughter. I hear Dan'yel say the word "husband" in our language as he dips a bowl into the vipie. I go quickly around the corner trying to pretend that I didn't hear what was said. I start grinding the grain with all of my might. Dan'yel enters the room after me. I stare at him as he enters, but I keep grinding. He sits down right in front of me, so I can't avoid looking at him.

"Married?" he asks gently. It's a question I hoped one day to hear from the mouth of the man I loved. But it's a question I imagined hearing before I was married. When he was asking me if I wanted to marry. Now he is asking if we are married. And he's already rejected me.

"Don't be angry," I plead, "I didn't tell them."

"Tell them what?" he asks, with all the softness that I have spent my life longing for.

I didn't want to have to say it. There is a bit of choke in my voice as I say, "That you did not want me."

I look away, like I did on our wedding night when he insisted on writing. But he grabs onto my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye. And what gorgeous eyes they are. Despite the strange things he wears over them. His hand slides behind my head massaging my scalp as he draws me close to him. I don't have enough time to get as nervous as I did on our wedding night. He tilts his head sideways, and our lips touch. I close my eyes. He tastes like mint leaf. Where did he get mint leaf in the dry season? They must have brought it with them in their packs. I like the taste. He parts my lips a bit and begins to dive deeper into my mouth.

When we break from the kiss, some moments later… I find that someone has closed the curtain and provided us with what privacy he can.

The next morning Dan'yel is talking excitedly to his men at the mouth of the cave. I come up beside him and stand at his elbow.

He turns to me and smiles, "Good news, Sha'uri, I've found the way home," he says in our language.

I look at him in horror and work hard not to cry. I thought Dan'yel wanted me.

He turns to me looking confused, "Sha're… won't you come with me?" he asks.

I respond by throwing my arms around his shoulders, and kissing his mouth. He makes it a light and quick kiss before pulling back.

He says something that sounds like an apology in English.

"Ashamed of me around your friends?" I tease.

He doesn't answer me. "Sha're… I think we're going to have to go and pretend to work in the mines for this plan to work," he tells me.

A few hours later, we are transporting the mineral from the mines to Ra's ship when one of the guards - a minor god - comes and knocks Dan'yel to the ground. Oneel shoots the god to the ground with a staff weapon.

Abba yells at Skaara. He blames him just because he was part of the rebellion. Then Abba pulls those near him to the floor to pray for forgiveness.

"Kassuf," my Dan'yel says in our language, "Take a look at your gods." Then he presses a button on the side of the god's head and the head fades away, quickly revealing a human head.

"Take a good look," he repeats, walking past Abba. I follow him.

"Are you all right?" I ask, touching the part of his head where he was hurt.

He flinches away from my touch but he says, "It doesn't matter. Let's focus on what we have to do."

Soon we are doing just that. With our faces covered, we are carrying what looks like a load of naquada into the pyramid. We are not fooling the guards. The follow us inside. Then they take the hoods off us one by one. The first two do not matter. They are not ones who would be known by the guards. But the third hood is over the head of Oneel.

He says something in his language, and then he begins to shoot the guard with the noisy earth weapon. Dan'yel holds me behind him with one hand and shoots with the small noisy weapon - the only one Oneel would allow him.

The noise of the earth weapons is so loud that I cannot ask Daniel a question. He keeps me far enough behind him that I am never really given a chance to fire the weapon they taught me to use.

Oneel says something Dan'yel, and Dan'yel and I follow him deeper into the pyramid. We enter a room which clearly holds the thing Dan'yel called a Stargate. It is amazing, and in other circumstances I would be in awe. There is also something smaller at the base of it. And I can see Dan'yel becomes angry when he sees it. I hear a sound and turn. One of our gods stands there. I scream Dan'yel's name, and then I feel fire on my chest.

The next thing that I know I am laying on the floor next to a man without a head. Dan'yel and Oneel are sitting beneath the gate. They look at one another and say something to each other at the exact same time in their own language. They walk over to the transporter rings and put the strange thing on it. Then they touch the dead man's hand. Large round things fall out of the ceiling and then return into it. When they have left, the thing within the circle is no more.

"How are you feeling?" Dan'yel asks me in concern, grabbing onto my elbow.

"Fine," I say.

He pulls me in for a big hug, "I thought I lost you!" he whispers in my ear.

Oneel says something in Dan'yel's language, and we follow him to the mouth of the pyramid. Skaara walks toward us, and puts his hand by his forehead for Oneel. Oneel does it back, and the crowd starts to cheer.

I lean closer to Dan'yel, and he leans closer to me. He wants me. He worries about me. I tilt my head to the side this time (to show him that I learnt from him) and our lips meet. I'm startled by Dan'yel's kiss but Abba does a victory cheer.

The next day we prepare to return to earth. Abba says only, "Obey your husband," by way of a goodbye.

Skaara holds me in a hug for a long time, "Thank you," he whispers. He would not thank me in front of Abba, because Abba does not know I raised my little brother.

"Are you sure you want to come with me?" Dan'yel asks the second before we step through the gate.

"Yes, husband," I say, leaping into the gate before him.

*Most people in Egyptian culture married for love. Royalty usually married their own siblings or other close relatives, although it's possible that these marriages were only ceremonial and their love lives were quite separate from them. Nobles were also occasionally instructed to marry certain other nobles to keep the delicate peace in society. But for the most part people married for love.

**The movie does a nice job of coloring for costumes. Egyptians were bad at dying so everyone but the nobles wore yellowish-orange color the undyed flax (they didn't use "dirty" animal fabrics. Nobles and royals wore: white, black or a purplish-red much like Kasuf's garments in the movie. The color of Kasuf's robes were made from Matter root. Of course, Sha'uri and Skaara should have been wearing one of those colors as well. I know Sha'uri does for the wedding, but it would have been an everyday occurrence.

***I know there are no vocals in the movie. But Ancient Egypt and the Middle East as a whole doesn't do purely instrumental music, there is always also singing too. So I can't imagine Abydonian culture losing that part of it.

****Sorry it's Hebrew for lizard. Closest I could get. It's really hard to find African languages online. But Middle Eastern is easy. Hence, why Hebrew and Arabic both sneak into my version of Egyptian.

*****Divorce was no big deal in Ancient Egypt. Sha'uri would have been fine. And the movie did right on the marriage ceremony. Basically all that happened was the wife moved into the husband's house and they were married.

Random Note: Daniel claims Abydonian sounds a bit like three languages. Two of them are actually language families, and one of which includes the Nigerian languages. I was a nanny for a Nigerian family for almost five years. Abydonian is nothing like Nigerian. Not even close. Abydonian's too smooth for that. Also Abydonian in the movie doesn't make any sense. I wasted a whole day of my life figuring that one out.


	2. The planet of gray

This chapter does contain a swear word, but it's in a foreign language. It also contains detailed descriptions of rather PG scenes, but they feel more than PG, because they are rather detailed.

Going through the Stargate is a terrifying experience. Dan'yel warned me of what it would be like, but this experience makes me wonder if he knows our language very well at all. I stagger forward trying grabbing onto the railing. I pull my hand back in horror I've never felt anything like that before. It's a strange pale gray color, and it's cool to the touch! I've only been in this world for a few seconds, but already I've figured out that what yellow is to our world gray is to Dan'yel's world. Now I am wondering why my husband wears green. Perhaps it is the Matter root of this new world? My husband may be an important person.

Dan'yel grabs onto me, holding me up. "I'm sorry I lied," he says in our tongue. "But I was worried that you wouldn't come if I told you. I promise this does get better."

A short man comes running into the room, speaking angrily.

Dan'yel moves between us and the man and says something quickly. Dan'yel is still unsteady on his feet, but that does not stop him from protecting me. He's holding up his hands and one word is repeated, "no" it must mean "na-nei". I've learned my first English word.

The man calms down, and Dan'yel pulls me beside him. He puts a hand around my back and says some words that ends in "wife." I have heard that word before. I break into a wide smile at the sound of it. He's telling them we're married.

The man's eyes bulge, and he looks at Oneel. Oneel nods his head. Then the man says something else and leaves the room.

"Sha're, on Abydos, do you have someone who takes care of sick people?" he asks in our language. I nod my head, "We have one too, and they want you to go and let him tell us you are healthy."

"Will you stay with me, husband?" I ask, a little more desperately than I'd have liked to.

He smiles, "Trust me, I know alien planets can be intimating. I'll stay with you when we're at the healers."

He talks my arm and we walk down a ramp which is not made of mud or animal skins. It's made of the same strange substance as the rail I grabbed. It has little holes in it. I'm looking at it so much I trip.

"I've got you," he says as he catches me.

"Say it in English," I demand.

"Why?" he asks.

"If I'm going to live here I want to know the language," I say.*

He nods but doesn't repeat himself. Instead he points to the thing I was looking at and says, "ramp".

"Ramp," I repeat.

"Gate room," he says gesturing to the whole room. I repeat after him.

Oneel turns around to point at Dan'yel. "Annoying," he says.

"Annoying," I repeat.

I know I've done something wrong, because Oneel is laughing and Dan'yel is glaring at him.

"What did I say?" I ask Dan'yel in Abydonian.

"You called me annoying," he says.

"I'm sorry, husband," I say.

"It's alright," he assures me.

We turn a corner and enter a large white room.

"Infirmary," Daniel says.

"The healer is here?" I ask.

He nods. Then he speaks in English to quickly for me to understand it. A man steps forward and talks to me. I look at Daniel.

"He wants you to sit on the exam table," he says pointing toward a slab covered in white. When I sit on it I'm shocked by how soft it is.

"So white is the color of healers?" I ask.

"You're an anthropologist in training," he says with a smile.

The healer walks toward me with a strange pointed device in his hand, and he says something to Dan'yel.

"He wants to take your blood," Dan'yel explains to me.

"What? You must have said that wrong. It's not possible," I stammer.

"It is. He'll use the needle to take some blood."

"I don't understand he's going to put it under my skin?"

Dan'yel nods.

"Does it hurt?" I ask nervously.

"Not really," he says.

"Is this like the Stargate doesn't hurt?" I ask suspiciously. I hear Dan'yel laugh. It's a great sound, and I really want to hear more of it.

"It will hurt a little, but it won't be so bad," he assures me.

I nod. Dan'yel takes my hand and turns it bottom side up. The healer walks toward me, and wipes something across the place where my arm bends.

"That didn't hurt," I confess to Daniel. Just then, a pain pierces through my arm. I jump. He rubs my knee in sympathy. It really wasn't that bad. It was made a whole lot worse by the fact that I wasn't expecting it.

"What can they tell from blood?" I ask.

"Lots of things. They can see lots of illness. They can also look at your DNA how closely related your people are to my people."

"DNA," I question.

"That's not really a first-day-on-Earth discussion," he says.

The doctor talks to him for a bit. "Sha'uri, there is a machine here that can see inside of your body. It can see your organs."

"What? How?" I ask, confused.

"It… Your language doesn't have words for this. We'll work on that later. But the machine is a very small enclosed place. I hate to ask you to do this on your first day on Earth."

"Can I see the pictures of the inside of my body?" I ask excitedly.

He repeats it to the doctor, and he nods. "But you might not understand them. Are you wearing any metal?" he asks.

"Metal?" he points to a few of the strange substances around the room including his eye of Ra medallion. I get it… the strange hard stuff I've been seeing all over. I shake my head. He instructs me to lay down on a long flat thing that looks like the table I was just on. But this time it's not soft. This is a place of unpleasant surprises.

Then the slab moves by itself, sliding me into a tiny cave. "Dan'yel?" I say nervously.

"You are alright. I'm right here. Do you want me to make them take you out?" he asks.

"I'm alright. Talk to me?" I plead.

I hear him say something to the healer. Then I feel him grab my toe. "I love you," he says in Abydonian.

"English," I plead.

The words sound nice in his native tongue. I beg words after word from him as the test continues. It makes the time pass. Soon I'm out of the thing - "machine", I know it is called - and back into Dan'yel's arms.

He holds me until I calm down, and then he says, "I'll show you where my room** is and then I have a meeting I have to go to."

"Can't I go with you?" I plead.

He shakes his head, picking up a bag that the doctor hands him.

"Wait, you said room, but you meant house," I say, using the English word he gave me - after a pause - for our word "tent".

"No..." he looks at me apologetically, "I mean I don't have a house right now. I'll… We'll get one. I've just been living on base."

"It's alright," I assure him running a hand down his arm. I'm not sure why this is causing him distress, but I know that it is.

He smiles, "You'll probably change your mind in a couple of days, but until then…" We walk down the hallway, and up a few sets of something he calls "stairs." They work like our ramps, but are much easier to trip on. Then we walk down another hallway. He opens one of the doors. I pause before it. There is writing. At least I think its writing. It is certainly not anything like our writing. I point to it.

"Jackson," he says, reading to name.

"What is Jackson?" I ask.

"That's me," he explains.

I look at him confused, "Dan'yel," I say pointing.

"Daniel Jackson," he explains.

"Dan'yel Jac'on?" I ask.

He smiles, "Just call me Daniel."

He opens the door to his room. And flicks on a light.

"How did you do that?" I ask. He flicks the switch on and off again. I roll my eyes. "But how does it work?"

"I don't even know the answer to that one, Sha'uri," he tells me.

The walls are gray, like the rest of the place. In the infirmary, the furniture was covered with white. Here it is green, just like Dan'yel's pants. I like that. It will be like he's here even when he isn't. There is a tall flat piece of furniture covered with papers and books. More books are scattered across the floor, along with a few things that look like clothing.

"I'm sorry about the mess… I wasn't expecting company," he stammers, moving to scoop up the clothing and throw it behind a small door. As he opens the door I see it is a tiny room that contains nothing but clothing. What a great idea! Except that on Abydos, we wouldn't have enough clothes to fill it.

"Ok," he says. "Quick introduction to bathrooms." he opens up another small door.

This room is bigger than the clothes room, but smaller than the main room. There are strange things all over. He walks to one of them. "Sink," he says in English. He turns a globe on top. "Hot, be careful with this one," he says in my language. "Cold," he says, turning another. But I can barely hear him. There is water flowing from it!

"How does it work?" I gasp.

"Again, not really a first day discussion."

"Does it always come out….cold like that?" I ask him, completely astonished.

"Yes," he says with a little laugh. "This, too," he adds, walking over and showing me the wonders of a tub. Then he gives me a how-to discussion to on the toilet. So far, I think I'm really liking earth.

"And I got you a change of clothes," he explains, opening the bag to show me.

"Man's clothes?" I ask, drawing them out.

"No… They're woman's clothes," he says, holding the pants, "But they are very different from your people's clothes. We'll get you clothes that are more you… but..."

"I'll wear these, husband."

He smiles, "So take a bath and put on the clothes, and then you can relax until I come back. There is a TV, but I think TV would be too much for you right now."

"TV?" I ask.

"It's a box that shows pictures. I'm going to a meeting, but I should be back soon," he explains.

He's almost through the door. "I love you," I stammer in English.

His face breaks into a wide grin and he comes back to give me a kiss.

Once he's closed the door, I walk over at sit on the large piece of furniture. I'd been dying to know the whole time if this was the soft like the… exam table, or hard like the CAT-scan machine. I find that this furniture it is even softer than soft. I lay on it for a bit before standing and getting to work. I pick up all the books and paper and stack them neatly on the tall flat piece of furniture. Next, my husband wanted me washed. On Abydos we don't make a big deal about washing except for festivals. Maybe they are different. Then suddenly I realize that maybe there will be a festival. Perhaps he will have a welcome ceremony.

I go into the bathroom and begin filling the tub. It takes me a long time to get the temperature right (he did it so effortlessly!) and I burn myself a bit before I do. If I were on Abydos, I would put a bit of aloe on it. But I have seen no plants on Earth yet. I also find something that is obviously a razor in the bag my clothes came in. I'm relieved, because I've noticed hair on the arms of some of the men. I'd worried that Dan'yel's planet had no way to rid themselves of hair. I'm not actually sure I could endure living like a barbarian. After my bath I put on the strange clothing, and that too takes some time. They have strange clasps around them.

Then I go into the main room. Now I must wait. I sit for a moment or two, and then I turn to the TV. Dan'yel had mentioned that it worked by this long flat stick. I hold it in my hand and push a button. Nothing happens. So I push another and another and another. I've pushed most of the buttons and then suddenly the box makes a really loud sound. I drop the stick and plug my ears.

Dan'yel mentioned that the box made pictures, but he never mentioned that it made sounds. Loud sounds. I start heading toward the door. I want to get Dan'yel to come and turn it off. But I pause, I don't know where he is. I can't speak enough English to get someone else to help me. I suppose if I went into the hall and screamed his name like a crazy person they would get him.

But if I do that my husband will think I'm a crazy person. Besides, if I'm going to live on Earth, I'm going to have to learn to deal with these things.

I take my hands off of my ears, letting the painful noise enter in. I grab the long flat stick off the floor and start pushing buttons. I remembered about where the button was, so I found it before too long.

After that I'm quite content with doing nothing for a while. But before long I grow bored again. I take one of the books off the table and flip through it. It has letters like the ones on the door. English letters. I put it down and pick up the next one. This one has pictures in it. Pictures of pyramids and Abydonian writing, and other things that are quite familiar to me. I crouch upon the floor like a scribe and become quite absorbed in the book.

The door opens, and Dan'yel stands at the door, laughing.

"Am I not permitted to look at your books?" I ask.

"Oh no," he says, coming forward and crouching near me, "What's mine is yours. You didn't get the clothing quite right. This," he says, touching the strap of the garment Earth woman apparently put over their breasts "Goes on under the shirt."

"But then no one can see it," I protest.

"Kind of the point," he says, still laughing.

I stand up and head toward the middle-sized room, "Sorry, husband."

"You don't have to apologize. I'm sorry it took me longer than I thought." I leave the door open, because the bathroom has a natural curve which hides me from his view, and I don't want to miss any of his words. "Hey, did you clean this place?"

"Yes," I say.

"It looks great. But you know you don't have to. It's not your job or anything," he says.

"I don't mind," I assure him. I really hate this breast cover… It took me long enough to get it on the first time. And now my husband is waiting for me.

"Khara!" I exclaim.

"Is that a swear word?" he asks.

"I'm sorry, husband," I say with a sigh.

"Are we having some bra troubles?" he asks slipping an English word into the Abydonian.

"If that's what this thing is called, it should be a swear word in itself!" I say in frustration.

"Try putting the clasps in front of you around the belly and then pulling it up," he instructs.

I try this for a few seconds, but it just results in another "khara" leaving my lips.

"Listen, just turn away from the entrance of the bathroom," he says slipping another English word in, "I'll come in and help you."

I turn away from him, and hold the bra over my breasts. I feel him standing near me. He takes the edges of bra from my hands and snaps it together. He then guides my hands into the arm holes, and slides the strap up my arm. His job is done, but he doesn't move right away.

"You're sort of getting in the habit of dressing me," I mutter.

"Who knew putting bras on could be almost as much fun as taking them off?" he whispers, close to my ear. He sweeps my hair over my shoulder, exposing by back to his breath. Instantly the hairs on my neck bristle. He kisses the place where my neck meets my shoulder. I lean my head toward him rubbing my cheek against the top of his head.

He traces kisses from the spot on my neck down to the edge of my shoulder. I lean back against him, desperate for more than a teasing contact.

"Sha'uri, I think you should put the shirt on now," he says, crossing to the far corner of the medium sized room, looking away, and crossing his arms in front of himself. Just like that first night. He seems to like it, and then he ends it. I don't understand.

"Right… We should be getting to the feast," I say, suddenly cheering. You are not supposed to lie as husband a wife before going to the temple. Perhaps Dan'yel's people have a similar rule about feasts.

"The feast?" he asks.

Of course, I misunderstood again. I'm beginning to wonder if I wasn't crazy to follow him to his world. Right now I'm not so sure he wants me here.

"I'm sorry, I thought…" I mutter pulling the shirt over my head. In my head it was going to be graceful, this at least I had successfully managed when I was by myself. This time the shirt gets stuck on my head though.

"Your culture has parties to welcome important people. And you are a very important person, so I need to throw you a party," he says, stepping forward to pull the shirt down.

"No, Dan'yel, it's ok. I just thought, maybe that was why you wanted me to wash and put on clean clothes. Maybe that was why you gave me the green clothes which are important to your people. Abba only has me wear the Matter root clothes when I am at festival. He is the only one who wears Matter root every day. But many people wear green in your culture, so…"

"Stop, Sha're… Green clothes are not a status symbol here. It's just the uniform of everyone who works at this place. And I want to throw you a feast. I want you to feel like you belong. I want you here," he says with a smile.

"Then why did we stop?" I ask, looking in his eyes before I lose my nerve.

"Sha'uri, in my culture we don't… do that… until after we know the person well," he explains, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. "We will… just not yet. Now let's go and throw you a party," he finishes with a wide grin.

"You do not have to, my Dan'yel!" I exclaim. He grabs me by the hand and pulls be along behind him. When we are in the hallway he begins yelling a phrase at every passerby. I don't know what the phrase means, but I memorize it anyway.

"Come to the mess hall to welcome my alien wife to the planet."

He throws the phrase at Oneel as we pass him.

Oneel falls into step next to us.

He asks Dan'yel a question, which causes Dan'yel to give him a glare.

"No! Oneel!" I admonish in English.

Oneel looks at me, surprised and impressed. He asks me a rapid fire English question. I look to Dan'yel.

"He was just worried that you actually understood his joke," Daniel replies, "Can I please tease him and tell him you did?"

"Yes," I say turning to Oneel causing his face to turn bright red. And my husband's pleasant chuckles to ring out. He's got a good laugh. I'm going to make sure I hear it more often.

Soon we are in the mess hall, where many people are already assembled. Dan'yel repeats the phrase and the room cheers. I'm blushing. I didn't actually expect it to be all about me. But after all, I am the only visitor.

Suddenly, they all start clinking small pieces of metal against transparent vessels. Dan'yel turns to me, blushing.

"They want us to kiss," he explains.

"Do you want to?" I ask.

He smiles, his hand going to my neck. Each finger lays its own claim on my scalp. His lips meet mine. But this isn't like our other kisses. It is quick and shy.

They clap again.

"I don't quite understand…" I mutter.

"In our culture, we don't have festivals for guests. But we do have them when people get married. So we'll consider this sort of a combination party," he explains. "Let's get some food," he says, guiding me to the other end of the room. There is a lot of food there. I look at Dan'yel, pleading with him to help me figure out what to eat.

"This is chicken. It tastes like your Isbe," he says, pointing. "And I think you'll like the fruit. It's nothing like what you have on your planet, but..."

"Which is good. I want to taste new foods."

"In that case," he says with a smile, "Sha'uri, meet ice-cream," he holds up a dish. "Chocolate ice-cream." It's a good time to learn a new language. I'm encountering so many new things. I might as well know the English word for them. Besides, I doubt there is a word in my language for any of these things.

We sit down at a table and they start clinking the metal and the transparent vestal together again. Dan'yel pulls me up, and I kiss him. I mean really kiss him. At first, he's trying to tone it down, but somewhere in the middle he losses himself in the kiss. He grabs onto my hips pulling me against him. Then he wraps his arms around me. It's like his self-conscious self hug, except I'm between him and his arms.

It's the hoots of the others in the room that bring him back to reality and remind him that are not alone. He places a hand on my shoulder and lightly pushes me away. But it takes another second before our lips break part and he sits down, blushing.

The sticks that they use to bang against the transparent vessels are something they eat with. I can't manage them. The "chicken" and "fruit" I eat with my fingers. But the ice cream is too cold and slippery for that. I stab the "spoon" at it, but I can't manage it. Dan'yel scoops some smoothly with the spoon, and puts it into my mouth.

It's amazing. Cold and sweet and something else which I can't name.

People start to filter by our table and I'm pretty sure they are introducing themselves.

"Give me an earth greeting," I plead to my husband.

"Well there are lots of different greetings depending on…" he begins. I glare at him. "Hello," he says.

I throw every greeter a "hello" and a smile. And try to learn the names that they give me with the strange thing Daniel calls a "handshake".

A woman walks up. I've never seen anyone look like her before. I don't know what to call it. First of all her hair is white. And her skin looks like a well-worn piece of leather.***

"This is Catherine," he says.

She sits down at the table across from us. Which only works because most of the greeters have stopped trickling by by now.

"Did I get the dialect right?" Caf'in asks, in a poorly accented version of my own language.

I clap my hands in glee.

"Now her pronunciation is worse than mine, and you laughed at me!" he says.

Caf'in smiles, "So how is your first earth meal?" she asks. I look down at the meal. I haven't actually ate that much. I've been kind of busy. "I like ice cream," I confess.

"I'll get you some more," Dan'yel says, standing up.

Caf'in grins at me, "That was some kiss you guys had a little while ago."

I smile, unsure what to say to that.

"He looks strong and brave, but he breaks easy Sha'uri. You'd better not break him," she warns glancing his way.

The last time I heard someone say something that protective it was my mother.

"Are you his Omm?" I ask.

"Omm?" she asks. "I'm not sure I know that word. But I'm no kin of Daniel's," she says sadly.

My husband returns with a heaping bowl of ice cream which he places in front of me. I scoop some clumsily with the spoon and hold it before his mouth. He looks completely surprised, but takes an exaggeratedly violent bite of it. That surprises me, and I become clumsier with the spoon spraying his face with ice cream. There is a moment of horror when I'm not sure how he'll react. He laughs.

"I think you should let him feed you, honey," Caf'in says.

"These earth things…" I mutter.

"It's hard, I know," he says scooping a spoonful for me, and then another for himself. Suddenly he catches up my hand in his. "You burnt yourself?" he asks.

I nod. "Sorry, I know you tried to warn me."

"Stop apologizing," he says, bringing the hand up to my lips to give it a quick kiss. "We'll stop by the infirmary and get something for it before we head back to the room."

"You have medicine?" I ask.

"Oh yeah, we have medicine." He takes another bite, before moving around in his seat to be more in front of me, "Sha'uri they offered me a job. A full-time job."

I don't understand what he's talking about, "You're green pants. Isn't that a job?"

"Right… Sort of. I was hired to translate. But that was over when we got back from Abydos. At the meeting today they… offered me a full-time job. I think you're going to like it. It would require trips to Abydos sometimes. When I go we'd stay quite a few days."

"We?" I ask.

"Yes, you could come back with me to Abydos when I travel."

My heart soars. I knew that it was right to leave my homeland with my husband. But it was still a really hard choice for me to make.

"Thank you, husband," I say, with my eyes locked in his for a long moment.

*No magical language learning here, folks. What fun is there in that?

**Early in the series it's clear that Daniel doesn't have a room of his own, but rather is housed in the rooms with several of bunk beds like an enlisted man. Later he gets a private room like an officer. But we don't actually know where he was sleeping at the time the movie happened. Perhaps he had a room, and then after he had Jack lie about his death forfeited it. (Ok, Jack wasn't actually lying, Daniel did die. He just left out the fact that Daniel came back from the dead.) Anyway, this story is AU, and I certainly don't think it is unreasonable that the Air Force would offer a brilliant homeless translator officer quarters. And this story would be a very different, less interesting story if we didn't give the newlyweds a bit of privacy. URST just isn't as much fun when resolving it isn't a realistic option.

***The average life expediency of an Ancient Egyptian was about 40 years. This would be her first senior citizen.


	3. The Perils of Ice Cream

This chapter like the rest of the story has been betaed by the wonderful AnneMary.

More Abadonian swearwords and detailed description of situations similar to the last chapter.

My whole life, I have fallen to sleep after the sunset. But on Earth, they seem to have no sunset or sunrise. I come back from the infirmary with a brand new bandage (which matches Dan'yel's skin, but not mine.)

At the bottom of the bag from which Dan'yel took my clothes, there were other things. When we returned to the room, I asked him about them.

"Tooth brush," he replies to the first one.

I raise my eyebrow, and he responds by demonstrating by taking his toothbrush and demonstrating its use. I imitate him.

"So that's why you always taste like mint," I exclaim.

He laughs at my description. The next thing in the box is familiar.

"When my Omm was alive, Abba used to brush her hair every night," I say, holding the strange earthen brush.

"Sit down," he says, as he takes the brush from my hands. He begins a slow gentle stroking of my hair. "What happened to your mom?"

The firm bristles on the brush scratch at my scalp, releasing the most pleasant sensation.

"Ra killed her… back when I was a little girl. Skaara was no more than a baby."

The brushes pauses, and I'm more concerned about how to get him to start brushing again than about the conversation.

"I'm so sorry Sha're… My parents died when I was little."

I turn to him, "Did you see it?" I ask. I never would have guessed. There was no pain in his beautiful eyes. I wonder if the strange things over his eyes are made to hide the pain. Or I wonder if eyes don't show the pain. Maybe no one can see pain when they look at me.

He nods his head. "You saw your mother die?" he asks, pain now clear in his face.

I didn't want to tell the whole truth, because it was too sad. But if we're sharing tragedies… "She was trying to save my sister."

He sits down on the floor. I've already figured out that the people of his world sit on chairs, so the fact that he's imitating my culture means something. He taps the floor in front of him. I sit down between his legs and lean back against him.

"There is a wise man in my culture that said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I used to think about that right after they died. You know - I had amazing parents for eight years; some people never have good parents even for a second."

"My mom was amazing. My dad was never amazing, but before we lost my mom he was good," I mutter.

"And your sister?" he asks.

"She laughed all the time. And she used to stand in the middle of the room and twirl until she fell over. Once she did it until she threw up. Omm made me clean her up; she was nursing Skaara at the time. I was so mad at Eshe that day. If I could see her again I'd never complain," I murmer.

He tucks his chin over my shoulder, "I used to think it was my fault. If I'd only listened better, or learned more, or… I thought I was being punished for being a bad son."

"I don't see how you could be a bad son. You're a really good husband," I reply.

"In my culture there are certain words that we say when we get married, promises," he says.

"Oh," I say.

"I need to say them to you," he says firmly, "It doesn't matter if you don't say them back. I take you Sha'uri to be my wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part."

"That was so beautiful," I say, leaning back against him, curling into his body. "And I can't remember it all… But I definitely mean it."

We sit like that for a while, drawing comfort from the bodily contact. It's been a long time for both of us. Longer for him, no doubt. When Skaara was a child I used to hug him. It has only been in the last few years he became too old for his sister's touch. Abba never hugged either of us.

I get the feeling that Dan'yel hasn't been touched much since his parents died.

Then I get up and sit on the bed behind him, "After Abba brushed Omm's hair, she used to massage his scalp," I inform him.

"That really isn't necessary," he says. I do it anyway. Then he lets out a groan of pleasure. His eyes roll back in his head.

"If this feels that good, imagine what I'll do to you if you stop pulling away," I whisper in his ear.

"Ah woman…the waiting might just kills me, but if it doesn't it's going to be worth it…" he says.

After his massage is done, he finishes brushing my hair. "Well, Sha'uri, I still smell like a yak. I'm going to shower," he mutters.

"What is a yak?" I ask.

"Never mind. Once I'm in the bathroom, you can put on your pajamas. Oh… Sorry I didn't remember to ask them to give you pajamas!" he exclaims. "Look, you can borrow some of mine. It's not really ideal, but…"

"I'd love to wear your clothes," I assure him. He raises his eyebrows, giving me a rather funny look.

"Go and de-yak yourself," I urge him, even though I don't have a clue what that means.

I put on his pajamas as soon as he leaves the room, and he is completely right. It's less than ideal. My husband is tall. The bottoms of the pajama pants pool around the floor, so I roll them up. Then I crawl into bed. The sheets have a strong smell that I can't describe. And I'm not all together sure if I like it or not. That's probably how Dan'yel felt about our tents.

When he comes out I'm laying on the bed with my eyes (almost) closed. He stands at the doorway of the bathroom. The light in this room is off and the bathroom light is on. He just stands there and stares at me for awhile.

I never hoped for love like this. I doubt even Omm could find me love like this.

"Dan'yel," I say, reaching out my arms to him. He slides onto the furniture next to me, and grabs onto my hand. I was hoping for more contact, but the hand, across the furniture, is just perfect.

"Afa alam," I whisper to myself, rocking back and forth. I feel like I'm going to die, or want to die. I'm not really sure. I've never been this sick in my whole life.

"Sha'uri… Are you ok?" Dan'yel asks.

I really didn't want to my brand new husband to hear my gastronomical difficulties. "Of course," I say easily.

"I don't believe you. Should I come in?" he asks.

"Please, no!" I exclaim.

"Tell me what's wrong?" he says, sounding concerned and opening the door a little.

"I'm just not feeling good," I say, but my body makes an unmistakable sound.

"Khara!"

"Exactly," I confess.

"No… There were no milk products on Abydos. No cows or sheep, and I'm guessing that Mastadges don't lactate," he mumbles.

"What?" I ask, because he's using an earth word.

"Do the babies of Mastadges drink from their mother's like humans?" he asks, sounding embarrassed.

I laugh, "Humans are the only creatures capable of nurturing their young that way."

"In that case, I'm betting your entire culture is lactose intolerant, and I fed you about three bowls of ice cream. God, Sha'uri! I'm so sorry!"

"It's alright, husband, just go back to sleep," I say.

"Sha'uri, I'm pretty sure that we can fix this if we get to the infirmary."

"Anything to make it end!" I exclaim.

Once I'm in the infirmary, they do a brief interview, and then give me a tiny nut-shaped object.

"What is this?" I ask Dan'yel.

"Medicine, you swallow it."

I try, but I start to gag. That's exactly what I needed right now. Now I have a slimy little nutlike object in my hand.

"It's ok, it happens to almost everyone the first time. Try to wash it down with some water," Dan'yel translates what the doctor said to me.

"Dan'yel, he's trying to give me water?" I laugh.

"You need water, you're probably dehydrated," he explains.

"I need vipie! Water makes people sick. Sick just like this," I mutter.

"That's probably true on Abydos. Egypt's water was very dirty, at least. But here on Earth our water is clean. So vipie is what we drank there? Weak beer to kill the microbes?"

"I didn't understand any of those words. But your water is clean? How do you clean water? Water is used to clean other things," I ask.

"I don't know the answer to that question. All I know is that you need to try to take this pill, and drink as much water as you can. Vipie would have a dehydrating effect."

I nod my head and put the "pill" back down my throat. This time I'm bound and determined to swallow it. It takes three tries to accomplish it. Then I take the long transparent vessel form Dan'yel's hand. I try to drink from it, but one part of it hits against my nose, and water dribbles down my face.

I like the taste of water. It's very fresh, and plain. But I don't like the Earth way of drinking.

Dan'yel asks the doctor something. Then he finds a bowl. It's not the ship shaped bowls we have in my country, but it's much easier to drink from than their long vessels.

He puts a hand around my back. "Are you ready to go back to our room?" I nod my head.


	4. The Colors of the Mall

When we were children back on Abydos we used to play a game. Everyone would hide among the dunes, but one who would look for them. I hated that game. I hated being the looker. I felt that everyone was hiding among the dunes staring at me. That was the feeling I had all of a sudden the next morning.

I open up my eyes. Dan'yel is sitting in a chair across the room from me watching me.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"Better," I say. But really it's great. I have that feeling you get when you wake up after a sickness and feel healthy. Like the world has just opened up and started anew. Like you've just been born.

"We'll avoid the dairy from now on. It shouldn't happen again," he says.

"Thank goodness!" I exclaim, "Did I sleep late?"

"You were up most of the night, so it's understandable. Do you want to go shopping?"

"Why would we go to the market? I thought that the mess hall served food for every meal," I say.

"I was thinking of clothes shopping," he says, "In America we have a lot of clothes. We're going to have to get some for you."

I nod my head. I go into the bathroom and start wrestling with the bra. His words come back to me, "Who would have known that putting on a bra could be almost as fun as taking one off?"

"Dan'yel!" I shout, running out into the room. The bra is mostly on. The shirt certainly isn't.

"Jeez! Sha'uri, fully dressed, please!" he exclaims.

"You've been married before!"

He throws a button-up shirt around my shoulders before saying, "What are you talking about?"

"You've taken off bras! You've been married before!"

"No… I… ok," he stammers. "This is a little hard to explain. See, on Earth, people don't necessarily have to be married in order to have sex."

"So you've had sex with someone who is not your wife, but you won't have sex with your wife?" I demand.

"This conversation would be much easier if you could just button the shirt," he pleads.

"What was her name? What was she like? Was she prettier than me?" I cover my mouth in more shock, "Did the bras you removed all belong to different woman?"

He starts to touch my shoulder, but I break away from his touch. "No, I've only had sex with one person, Sarah. And no one is prettier than you."

"Why did you divorce?" I ask.

"We didn't divorce. We weren't married. But she broke up with me because she thought I cared more about my work than about her."

"Sex is marriage," I say, with a shrug.

"So then what are we?" he asks.

I smile, "We're married… in waiting."

He leans forward to kiss me, but suddenly realizes that I'm still not dressed. He pulls away, blushing.

I return to the bathroom to continue getting dressed. "Someday, Dan'yel, you're actually going to take clothes off me, instead of always putting them on," I throw over my shoulder.

I hear Dan'yel's laughing rippling through the room. It's going to be a good day.

After I get dressed, Dan'yel helps me tie up the boats. They are worse than bras, but they are less embarrassing to get help with.

All the moving around that we've done so far has only been up or down a couple of floors, so I have yet to experience the machine he calls "elevator". Apparently going out of the base means you need to use this machine. Dan'yel explained to me that it was a machine that moved us up or down a lot of floors. At first I couldn't understand how many. Then he took a notebook and drew dots to show us how many. I counted them in Abydonian, and then he counted them in English.

Then we walked down the hallway and got into the elevator. "You might want to hold onto the side," he says, a moment too late. I scream an ear-piercing scream. He grabs onto me.

"I'm ok, just embarrassed," I stammer.

"One more elevator to go," he says, overly cheerfully.

"We have to do that again?" I ask.

"Unless you want to hoof it twelve floors."

"Hoof?" I ask.

"Never mind," he mutters.

"If you say it, you have to define it," I beg.

"You can't go adding things to this marriage now, we already said our vows," he teases.

He shows a shiny flat white thing to the guard, and then has an animated discussion with him. The guard waves us on and we get into another elevator. This time I don't scream, but I still kind of want to.

Dan'yel writes some words. I recognize "Jackson" from the door, and wonder why he's written it twice.* Then he and has another discussion with yet another guard. Then he leads me into outside. I have been in the grayness with the fake sun so long that the real thing hurts my eyes. And their sun is yellower than ours.

"I didn't know that your planet had a sun," I say in awe.

"Yes, we have a sun. Only one moon though."

"I knew that."

"Of course, the glyph…" he mutters.

"Your air smells good too," I murmur.

"It has a bit more oxygen, and a lot more argon."

"I don't know what those words mean," I confess.

"Oxygen is the stuff we need. The stuff we breathe. Anyway we'd better get going."

"Can't I just breathe today?" I ask, spinning around.

"I'd bet you're already hungry," he says. My stomach grumbles in answer to his question. "We'll bask in the sun when we get back."

We sit down in a thing he calls "car". It is a strangely shaped machine and has chairs inside. A man sits in the front and makes the machine make a noise.** Then it starts to move impossibly quickly. It moves so much faster than the fastest Mastadge that I can't even fathom it. I grab desperately onto Dan'yel's hand.

There are three more stops where he has to show the thin shiny card. The road is twisting and turning around a tall green piece of land.

"I see why the fabric of your world is green; your world is green as well. Just as we wear yellow clothes in a yellow world. I just don't understand how you dye it."

"Another thing I'm not an expert in," he says.

I grab onto his finger. "What?" I ask in English.

He gives me the word, "Finger."

"And the tall part of your world?" I ask.

"Mountain," he replies.

"Ear?" I ask, fondling his.

He gives me the word, and then says "lips", touching mine before giving me a kiss that ends all conversation for a time.

When our kiss is finished, I look around and discover that the green mountains are gone. Gray is the other color of this land, and their roads are a dark gray or black color. But the buildings around the streets are not gray or green. They are a million different colors. Shades and hues I never imagined. So much color that my brain could not comprehend it.

"Where did they all come from?" I ask, desperately.

"The people?"

"The colors."

"Oh! Finally you answer a question I do know. Thank you to Mrs. Greenwood, my fourth grade teacher! They all come from the sun."

I laugh, "If you don't know just say so."

"No, seriously, the colors all come from the sun. You know what? I'll show you with a prism once I get a chance."

"So what is your marketplace called?" I ask.

"It's a 'mall', it's not so much a marketplace. There is a big building with a bunch of little stores, and lots and lots of people walking around and buying things."

"Dan'yel? What do you trade at the mall?" I ask.

"We don't trade here. We use money." He takes a thin piece of paper out of his pocket. "When people do their jobs, for me translating, they are given these things by their boss. Then they take them and give them to people to get whatever they want. Some of them have big numbers and you can trade them for a lot. Others have smaller numbers."

I nod my head. But my stomach is twisting up a little bit. I'm not sure that I'm ever going to be able to navigate his world. It's too hard. I can't do this. He's going to have to take care of me for the rest of my life.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"Nothing…" I mutter.

He grabs my chin and makes me look into those blue eyes. He's already figured out I can't resist this move. Damn him for being a quick study.

"I'm not good at Earth," I confess.

"You're a lot better at navigating this than most people would be. Hell, if I didn't already know your language I wouldn't have done any better in your world."

"You freed us from 5000 years of slavery," I remind him.

"Most of that wasn't me," he hedges, "I'd love you even if you really did flop at this. But you aren't going to flop," he assures me.

The car pulls up in front of a huge shiny building. Dan'yel says what I think is an expression of gratitude. "Thank you," I repeat.

Dan'yel grins at me. "You're learning fast."

We enter the mall, and I'm immediately overwhelmed. There are people everywhere. Their clothes come in even more shades and hues than the buildings. And they are wearing a dazzling variety of lengths of sleeves and dresses. I couldn't make sense of it.

Dan'yel leads me over to a bench. "I'm sorry," he says. "I should have left you at home. I just can't imagine I'd be good at guessing woman's clothing sizes. And I wanted to you pick out something you actually wanted. It's too much too soon. We can leave."

"Nei-ney," I say using my Abydonian by accident.

"Ok, pretzel then. You eat them with your hands. They are best with cheese, but you can't have that. I'll get you tomato sauce."

"I don't know what you're saying," I confess.

"Mmmm," He says. I smile as I remember that these were the first words he ever said to me.

He leaves me alone on the bench at the mall, and I have to focus on mastering my panic. If he left me here, I don't know what I'd do. I wouldn't know what to tell the man in the machine so they could get me home. I don't suppose they'd understand me if I asked them to take me to the "place of the green-clothes wearers". Particularly if "green" were the only English word of the lot.

Dan'yel sits down next to me, and I grab onto him.

"What's wrong?" he whispers, wiping hair from my face.

"Tell me the name of the place we live," I whisper.

"Sha'uri," he admonishes. "I'm not going to leave you here."

"Please," I beg.

"Cheyenne Mountain," he says.

"Sianne Moun'ain," I repeat.

He nods.

"Here," he offers me a bite of a strange bread. It's salty and the sauce is thick and vegetable, although I've never tasted this vegetable before. And he's right about being able to eat it with your fingers. It saved me the embarrassment of eating with their utensils in front of others.

After we eat he leads me down the wide hallways of the marketplace. I cling onto him. We turn into a store filled with colorful garments.

He asks a woman a question which I know contains the words "wife" and "dress".** I've noticed that questions in this language get higher in pitch at the end.

The woman directs him to the back of the store where there are a dazzling display of dresses. And I've just discovered some of them have tiny pictures on them as well.

"Dan'yel, choose the one you want to see me in," I say, hiding my face in his shoulder.

He laughs, "We're choosing a lot more than one!"

I can't imagine owning more than one dress like this!

After I endure a "fitting room" and memorizing my size, it becomes sort of fun. By the time it's all said and done, we leave the shop with three dresses.

"Thank you, Dan'yel," I murmur.

He turns into another store.

"You can't possibly intend to buy me more!" I exclaim.

He grins, "I would buy you the world if I could." The grin is gone now, and he's making a pretty grim face.

"Could?" I ask.

He pulls me over to a bench, "Sha'uri, I'm broke."

"Where?" I ask, looking at his limbs which look fine to me. No… beyond fine. Amazing.

"No… My fault. I'm using American expressions in an ancient Egyptian language. 'Broke' in American can mean you don't have any money."

"But you do… I saw it," I say pointing to his wallet.

"No… I have some money. Two weeks' salary, and some pretty good hazard pay from Abydos.**** But I don't have a lot of money. Not enough to get a house. Not enough to give you the things you deserve."

"Are they not allowing us to live in the room on base anymore? If not, my father could give us a tent."

"You can't just live in a tent in America. You have to have someplace to put it. Besides, they aren't kicking us out of the place on base."

"Good, because I really like it."

He smiles.

"Can we trade the dresses back for money?" I ask nervously.

"Sha'uri, we're not that bad off. I shouldn't have even mentioned it. Only I just felt guilty. You keep talking about me like I'm the perfect husband. I'm not. I'm..."

"For richer or poorer, Dan'yel. I love you. Should I… I mean, can I do something without being able to speak English? I can… I suppose bread-making is the same on your planet?"

"Sha'uri, I think we will both be happier if you concentrated on learning English for a while. We don't need the money. I just… I was trying to figure out how to tell you that we're going to have to stay in an apartment for a year or two."

"Apartment?" I ask repeating the English word.

"Apartments are rooms that you rent in a building."

"But we already have rooms," I point out.

"Yes, but apartments are bigger. And they have a kitchen. And they aren't on base."

"Doesn't that mean that you have to travel to work? And we'd be farther from the mess…"

"But nobody lives in a tiny room on a military base forever!" he protests.

"It's bigger than the tent I grew up in," I point out. I look at him, and there is something on his face which reminds me of Skaara's face when he tells Abba about some leadership deed that he did. "Dan'yel, you never have to worry that you are not good enough for me. You're my husband, and there is nothing you could ever do to disappoint me."

He smiles at me, "And you're my wife. And I'm as lucky as hell, and I'm never going to forget it. And you don't have to worry about pleasing me either, just be you. I love you."

I grab onto his hand, and he pulls me into a side hug. We hold each other for a little while, "More clothes now…" he says.

We walk into the next store, and I carefully say, "Dresses p'ease."

The woman stars at me strangely.

"Did I say it wrong?" I ask Dan'yel in my language.

"No you did it perfectly, but this is a shoe store."

"This store sells nothing but shoes?" I ask in shock.

Dan'yel talks to the lady for a second. He seems to be really bothered by whatever she says. He holds onto my hand and talks to her for a little longer.

"What did she say?" I ask.

"She asked why we didn't have rings," he says.

"Ring?" I ask.

"It's a piece of metal that goes around a finger. People here wear them when they are married."

"Why did mentioning it make you so sad?" I ask, touching his shoulder.

"Rings cost a lot of money."

"They don't have cheap ones? I think I could make one. The drink people had at dinner last night… I think I could twist something out of that."

He grins, "You want to make our wedding rings out of pop cans?"

"Not a good idea?" I ask.

"No, the whole point of rings are that they are expensive and beautiful and…"

"I thought the point was announcing to the world that we're married," I interrupt.

He looks at me with a grin covering his face, "You really don't care about the rings? We can get a cheap ring now, and get the real one in a few years when we have a house and whatever else we want."

I nod my head eagerly. "We'll get shoes later," he says.

We walk into a small store with many shiny pieces of metal. The store is almost completely populated by little girls.*****

"They marry very young on Earth," I say, suddenly feeling very old and insecure. As well as more than a little sorry for the little girls. Was Sarah this young when she was with my husband?

"Oh, they are not getting married," he says, and I breathe a sigh of relief, "Little girls come here to buy cheap jewelry. This is not the place where adults come to buy wedding rings."

He looks around for a little bit before selecting two circular pieces of metal.

He takes them to a lady behind a piece of furniture. He gave a bit of money, and I notice that they give some back. Perhaps it is a tradition in their country… some polite sharing.

We start to walk next door, and I see that the next store is full of nothing but bras.

"Torture chamber," I mutter.

He glances up at the store and starts to blush. "You do need some bras and underwear. I was planning on getting them in a department store, but maybe…" he mutters.

Dan'yel seems perfectly comfortable with bras at home. I'm not sure why he is so bothered by them in public. But these bras are different from the one I have on. They are colorful and lacy. And it occurs to me that wearing one of these bras might help break my husband's resolve. "Come on, Dan'yel," I say pulling him behind me.

We enter the store and a woman says something to Dan'yel. He tells me that she wants to know my size. I repeat the dress size. He shakes his head, and explains that bra sizes are different. Life on earth is complicated. The lady looks at me and makes a guess.

"Pick one, Dan'yel," I plead. A blush creeps up his collar. He grabs a bright red lazy one of the shelf and hands it to me. The woman takes it from him with a roll of her eyes and grabs a different one instead. Apparently he forgot about the size. Then she also grabs matching underwear. She directs me toward a fitting room.

These bras turn out to be even harder to put on than the one I've been wearing. "Dan'yel, you need to come in here and help me," I inform him.

"Sha'uri, you're going to have to do it yourself this time. I can't go into a fitting room with you at Victoria's Secrets."

"Why not?" I ask.

"Because they'd think… Just never mind, it's not happening!" he exclaims.

After a bit of time I get the evil thing snapped into place. "I'm coming out to see if you like it," I tell him.

"DO NOT DO THAT!" He says with alarm. Does his language even have sarcasm?

"But how do I know it is what you want?" I ask self-consciously.

"If you like it, I like it," he says.

I don't actually like it. It's even less comfortable and more difficult to put on than the other bra (I think we will get some from this department store he speaks of). But I think Dan'yel is really going to like this… Judging by the blush this place puts on his neck.

We've been shopping for a long time. Right now we need a Mastadge to carry the packages. And another meal. I'm hungry. And I really can't believe how much Dan'yel has bought for me. I now own ten dresses, of every color known to man. I also own two pairs of shoes (which do not have to be tied, apparently many woman's shoes have no laces). I also own something that plugs into something like a TV (called "computer") and will teach me to speak English.

"Let's do dinner before we head home," he says.

"You're reading my mind," I tell him.

We are heading into a restaurant when something starts buzzing.

"What's that?" I ask alarmed.

"It's a phone," he says, drawing it out of his pocket. That isn't an explanation so much as sticking another name on the thing I don't understand.

He opens the ringing thing up and holds it to his ear. "Dr. Jackson," he says into it. Then he talks into the phone. I try to eavesdrop in order to learn more English, but I don't catch any words. So I start to look around me. Dan'yel was right in convincing me to buy a pair of pants, along with the dresses most of the woman are wearing pants.

I hear my name on the phone and turn puzzled. He waves me off, and finishes his conversation quickly.

"Sha'uri, I'm going to take you back to Cheyenne Mountain. Then I'm going to be gone for a while, maybe all night."

"Why?"

"Jack's wife left him. He needs me right now."

"Jack?" I ask.

"O'Neill. His first name is Jack."

I still don't get why people here have two names, but I do have an important question. "You said your parents are dead."

He looks at me strangely for a long moment, before he says, "They are."

"But if he is Jack and you are Jack's son…" I say.

He lets out a long laugh. But the worry doesn't go out of his eyes. "No, those are just names. He is not my father. It is a bit of a strange coincidence, I'll admit. Jack did have a son… He died. Not too long ago. And now his wife left him. And he's in a really dark place; he wanted to die when we were on Abydos."

"You don't have time to take me back to base!" I say with alarm.

"I don't think he'd do that now," Daniel says, although he doesn't seem to sure. "And you can't get back to base by yourself." Of this he seems absolutely sure. And I am too.

"So take me with you. I can help."

He looks uncertainly at me for a long moment, "Let's just hope he doesn't think I'm rubbing his face in my good luck," he mutters as we go out into the bright sunlight.

*She doesn't yet understand last names or the fact that she would have the same one as Daniel.

**I'm assuming they would have a driver. Daniel strikes me as too poor for a car, and it's almost a mile to the outside of the base, and taxis couldn't go on base. I mean, theoretically they could walk the mile and then get in the taxi. But I can't imagine a bunch of taxis sitting around the opening of a top secret military base. And I'm guessing the base is out of town. I know the one I used to live by was 10 miles out of town. Now, it's not like that little town had a whole lot of taxis anyway, but I'd be shocked to hear they dropped people off at base.

***People learning new languages understand far more than they say. That's why Sha'uri is already catching the gist of words in English on her second day on Earth. Meanwhile the only say a few words.

****Right now they are in Claire's around a bunch of twelve year olds girls.

**** *I'm assuming that Daniel actually has a decent about of money right now from his translation work before the mission, and from the mission itself. During the movie we know he starts off with only two suitcases full of things. By the first time we see his apartment in season one it already looks like a museum. So you have to figure that he's getting paid enough money to buy pretty much whatever he wants at the mall. Just not enough to get a house, or apartment, or car. I mean, at this point it's only a paycheck (maybe two?).


	5. The Grief of a Friend

We sit down in a yellow machine that Dan'yel calls a "taxi". I ask him what the difference between the machine he calls a "taxi" and the machine he calls a "car" is. I don't actually understand his explanation, but I do get that it has something to do with money.

He leans back in his seat, and I put a hand on his shoulder in sympathy.

"The sad thing is: I get why she left him. He was so depressed, and then he left on a mission he thought would kill him. I'm sure she knew that was what he meant to do. But he's not like that anymore. If she would have just stayed I know that she would have seen him being healed. Getting better. Being a good husband. If she could just know…"

"Make your machine talk to her," I suggest.

He laughs.

I'm offended. It sounded like a really good plan. His eyes grow serious, "I don't even know her number, and if I can't think of the right words to say…"

"Then let me talk to her. I will inform her that Oneel is a good man who freed my people from five thousand years of slavery."

"Hey now, a few hours ago, you were giving me credit for that."

"Well, you aren't in any danger of being left by your wife," I tease back.

A strange grateful look comes over his face, and I realize I need to assure him of things like that more often. "Anyway you can't speak the language," he tells me.

"Ah, but you could translate the language and into the machine for me."

The yellow moving machine stops in front of a house. Dan'yel helps me and all of the packages out of the machine before giving the driver some money. Then we walk up to the front door. Dan'yel pushes his finger upon a small round part of the wall.

"Can I?" I ask.

"What?" he asks. But I can't actually resist anymore. I push the button down… and don't stop pushing it. It has a different texture than anything I've ever felt before.

Oneel opens the door, and he looks really rough. He looks at me in surprise, and I wish I'd let Dan'yel return me to our lonely room.

We enter the building which I'm guessing is one of the "houses" that Dan'yel longs for. It's dark inside, and Oneel seems to be worse at cleaning than my husband. He walks into another room. (This house has a lot of rooms. How many children does he have? You could fit many children into this place.) He comes back with long containers.

He pulls something off of them, and hands one to each of us.

"Vipie," Dan'yel explains. But he takes mine from me, saying something to Oneel. Oneel looks at me strangely and leaves the room again. He returns holding a bowl.

"Thank you, Oneel," I reply gratefully.

He smiles at me. It's a weary smile that doesn't touch any part of the face but the mouth. Then he says some words to me in which I hear my name (slightly mangled, as all earthlings call me Sha're) and English.

I turn to Dan'yel.

"He's impressed by how well you speak my language," Dan'yel explains.

I smile at Oneel, but he's looking dejected again, "Sara is a fool," I tell him.

He doesn't seem to need that translated. He gets everything he needs from the context. Dan'yel pours my vipie into the bowl. I take a sip. It seems quite intense.

There is silence.

Am I in the way?

Oneel hands Dan'yel papers. Dan'yel looks at them. Based on the tone of the word that comes out of Dan'yel's mouth I've just learned my first English swear word.

"What does the paper say?" I ask.

"Its official divorce papers," Dan'yel explains. "I think we were both hoping she was just leaving for a bit. We didn't know she'd already taken it this far."

Oneel begins talking, and I don't ask my husband to translate. I know that this is something private and personal between the two of them. Anyway, sometimes all that matters is that you were there.

At some point Oneel makes us food. He takes some white things and cracks them over a flat piece of metal. Inside they are yellow. As they sit in the flat piece of metal they freeze from a liquid to a solid. Oneel adds some vipie to them. He tries to add some other orange thing, but Dan'yel stops him.*

The drink is more powerful than our Vipie. Dan'yel does not hold the vipie well, and he is getting louder and more insistent as they talk.

I hear one word repeated, "Sara." What the hell is Dan'yel telling Oneel about his ex-wife?

I can't take it anymore. I stand up and slam the bowl on the table and stomp out of the house. Of course when I get to the step I realize it was a pretty dumb move. Where the hell am I going to go? I sit down on Oneel's front step. I say the name of the place that we live out loud, "Shy-Ann-'ount'n. But it does me no good, because none of the yellow machines are around, and I don't have any money.**

"Sha'uri?" Dan'yel calls loudly, running out the door. When he sees me on the step, he relaxes and sits down next to me.

"I hate her," I inform him.

"You scared the shit out of me! I was picturing you alone on Earth. And you did this because you're mad at Oneel's wife?"

"Oneel's wife? Sara is Oneel's wife?" I say in horror, crying.

"What exactly is going on?" He says.

"Sara… You're in there talking about your ex-wife, and… Now I know that Oneel's wife is Sara… and…"

"Wow… Sara is a common name on Earth. Sara my ex-girlfriend is totally different than Sara Oneel's wife. Is that what you were worried about?"

"So in there…" I point.

"I was cursing out Oneel's wife, who I've never met."

"Cursing out?" I question.

"Criticizing, saying bad things about," he defines.

"Do you love her? Your Sara?" I ask him.

"She isn't my Sara…. I'm not sure she ever was. And I didn't love her. I tried to love her."

I search his eyes, because there is unbelievable sadness behind them right now, "You don't think you're capable of love." It's written clearly on his face.

"I didn't, Sha'uri, until I met you," he says, gripping my hand. "We should probably go back inside before Oneel organizes a search party."

Oneel worries about me. This is a new concept to absorb. I was just getting used to the fact that my husband worries about me, and now I have other people worrying about me as well. No one has worried about me since Omm died. Abba only worried about his people as a whole and in abstract. My nurse could not see past her own nose. And Skaara at least loved me, but he doesn't have the foresight for fear to worry.

We go back into the house, and before Dan'yel can explain, Oneel pulls me into a hug. When it is done, he begins speaking to me harshly. I'm being scolded like I am a child.

Onnel pulls something out of a drawer in one of his pieces of furniture. Dan'yel tries to take it away. They talk back and forth so quickly I can't even catch a word.

"What?" I demand in English.

Dan'yel turns to me, "He's trying to give you a weapon."

"Why?"

"It's… called pepper spray. He was worried about you when you were by yourself. I tried to tell him you wouldn't understand, but…"

Oneel says something he obviously wants translated. Dan'yel nods his head. "He wants me to tell you that Colorado Springs is not a desert."

"I don't understand! Your world is so dangerous that I need weapons to go there by myself?" My head is spinning. The mall seemed safe enough. But this would explain some things. Perhaps this is why they were so willing to fight in my world. They came from a world where fighting was common.

"No," Dan'yel says, shaking his head. "That's why I didn't want him to try to explain it to you. This world is almost always safe. People don't get hurt very often. But it really isn't a good idea for a woman to be walking alone after the sun goes down."

I nod my head again, "But if I take this weapon, Oneel will think I'm safe. He'll feel better. And he's already lost so much."

Dan'yel smiles, "You are a really wise woman, Sha'uri."

I take the device from Dan'yel's hands. "Thank you, Oneel," I say. Then I ask Dan'yel to show me how to use it, and promise both him and Oneel not to wander off on my own. I know that my tantrum really scared them. It's not the sort of thing that a married woman does. It was the tantrum of a child.

They show me how to work the weapon. Then Oneel talks on the talking machine. Not long after, a yellow machine stops in front of the house. It makes a loud sound, and we go out to it. Oneel stands at the door, looking after us with a sad look on his face.

He says something to Dan'yel that contains the words "newlyweds" and makes my husband blush.

In the yellow machine, Dan'yel seems distracted, looking out the window. I touch his face, turning it toward me.

"Don't ever leave me, Sha'uri," he whispers.

"Never, my husband," I assure him.

He smiles at me, and we sit silently for a moment. "Tomorrow, I start working. I'll be in my office all day. You can stay in the room and…"

He stops when he sees my look of horror.

"Sha'uri?" he asks.

"You're going to leave me alone for the whole day? Are you tired of me already, husband?" I ask, concerned.

He smiles, "Please, come with me to the office tomorrow, Sha'uri. I'm not sick of you, that is for sure. Woman on earth, they like to have some time away from their husbands."

"Never, husband," I assure him.

He smiles. I don't think he's quite used to smiling yet. He will be.

When we reach the room, I change into my new nightgown. Then the two of us brush our teeth side by side. I'm laying down in bed when he comes out.

A smile comes to his face. I remember last night, when he was desperate for touch, but too proud to ask for it.

"Will you hold me, husband?" I ask.

He gives me a knowing smile. He knows what I'm doing, and he's going to let me do it. I scoot a little closer to his side of the bed. He joins me in the center and drapes an arm around my waist. His breath on my neck is making it very hard to fall asleep. And then I feel something against my lower back that lets me know he's having just as much difficulty getting to sleep.

"Dan'yel?" I question, turning toward him.

"Not yet, my love," he whispers, turning me back away from him.

And that just makes me want him all the more.

In the morning, I take my first shower. They are much faster than baths, but in every other way they are inferior. I am finally able to get dressed without much ado or any help from my husband (thanks in part to the new shoes). Then we head to the mess hall. Dan'yel has already become familiar with my indecision, and complete ignorance of what things do and do not contain milk, so he just scoops food onto both of our plates.

People are still stopping by our table to greet us.

"Dan'yel, are all newlyweds treated like this?" I ask.

"Most of them have never seen an alien before," he explains.

"What is an alien?" I ask.

"Ah, you are… I mean… It's a word we use whenever someone comes from another planet."

"I don't understand, how could they never have seen someone who came from another planet? The Stargate is right here."

"But we've never been to your planet before," he says, taking a large bite of something on a spoon. I'm having something called "toast". It doesn't require utensils.

"No, but you've been to the other planets, right?"

"Other planets?" he asks in shock, the spoon halfway to his mouth.

"Yes," I nod. "People from your world have never come to my world before. But people from many other planets have."

"Are you telling me that the Stargate goes to more than one planet?" he asks in shock.

"Yes," I say, puzzled. "Don't people from other worlds go to your planet?"

"The Stargate goes to more than one place?" he repeats.

I nod.

He makes a gleeful sound.

"Do you have the addresses? Do you know how to get to these places?"

"Ra has forbidden it."

"Ra also forbade writing, and yet…"

I bite my lip, trying to think of the best answer, "I don't know how to get to other planets. But I know that there is a place on my planet which talks about other planets."***

"Sha'uri! You're amazing!" he says, dropping a quick kiss on my lips before leaving the room. My stomach lurches. He left me. He promised he wasn't going to do that. I think I can find my way back to the room… But I'm not sure. I take a deep breath, and wonder if I should finish my meal first.

Dan'yel comes back into the commissary, "So we're finishing breakfast before I deliver GALAXY-altering news to the General?" he asks.

"You left me," I explain with a shrug.

"Never, love," he says, sitting down across from me. But every inch of him is fidgeting.

"Let's go and talk to the General," I tell him, and he leaps up.

Dan'yel starts going down the corridors. Often he gets too far ahead of me, and has to turn around and wait for me. I consider going slower just to aggravate him. Instead I take off the shoes (they may not have laces, but they do have something called "heels", which I'm pretty certain were designed just to make it so women walk slower than men) and chase after him.

He grins, and takes my shoes from me. We arrive at a room with a table in it. (These people put tables everywhere. They do nothing with this table but lay papers upon it and set glasses of water on it that most people don't drink.)

Dan'yel talks excitedly to the General for a long time. I grow board, and pour myself a glass of water as I wait. I decide that I like water better than vipie. It tastes so fresh and clean. Add that to the list of things that I like better about Earth. It's a small list, but it's growing.

"Tomorrow we leave for Abydos," he tells me.

"Are you going to travel the universe, my Dan'yel?" I ask.

"I don't know Sha're… But I do know that I will always and forever be returning to you. And… If you don't want me to go, I won't."

Abba used to listen to Omm's will, but she had more will than most. My husband is asking for my opinion. I find myself beyond relieved. "Partners", Omm had said of her and Abba once. But she never said this before her husband.

He looks at me. "What are you thinking about so hard?" he asks.

I don't dare tell him.

"Sha're… Please?" he asks.

"I was thinking… About how Omm used to say she was Abba's 'partner'. She was joking," I rush on.

His blue eyes lock on mine, "I don't know whether your mom really was joking or not when she said that. But I'm not joking when I call you my partner. Our relationship is complicated, but it's equal, Sha'uri. Equal."

I smile at him.

"Let's finish eating, and then you can put in your language learning software while I do some translating to get ready for tomorrow, ok?" he asks.

I nod my head. He places a hand on the small of my back. I wonder if his touch is like electricity to me only because of what Oneel called "newlyweds". I wonder if it's only because we have no yet done everything he meant by that word. But I hope that his touch will always make me feel alive.

When we reach the room, he pushes a button the computer. I'm excited, hoping that this button will be as fun as the button outside of Oneel's house. Then he pushes another button. Something pops out of the computer, and I shriek. I can tell that Dan'yel is trying hard not to laugh at me. I glare at him. He takes one of the things we bought yesterday and puts it on the thing that just popped out. Then it goes inside the computer.

"So it's hollow?" I ask.

"No."

"Then where does it go?" I ask in shock.

"Well, a little bit of it is hollow where the disc goes," Dan'yel explains. "Then the disc reader spins it around and reads different parts of it."

"Ok, how do I learn this?" I ask.

"Just wait… I have to download it," he says.

I nod my head, even though I have no idea what he said. I walk slowly around his office. There isn't much here, but there are a whole lot more books. I start to gather them together, which earns me a grin from my husband.

"No one could call you lazy, Sha'uri," he says.

"The same could be said of you, husband," I retort.

"Ok," he says after some time. "I've got it working. You put these on your ears," he says, offering me large headphones. I sit down before the machine, and let him place them. Then he pulls one off a bit, "Then you just listen and repeat what they say into this microphone," he says.

The machine displays two pictures of people waving. I wave back. "Look at the words," Dan'yel prompts. "The computer can hear you, but it can't see you."

I see English letters on the page, "Hello."

"Click on the little green button to make it talk," he prompts.

"Click?" I ask.

"Right, computers are new to you. You move this," he says, showing me a little thing attached to the computer, "Until that," he points to something on the computer screen, "Is over the little green thing. Then you push a button."

Good; I love buttons. But this button is not nearly as fun to push as the one outside of Oneel's house. It makes a sound that is much like the sound that Dan'yel makes when he says "click".

When he presses the button, the computer says, "Hello." Well, I knew that word already.

"Hello," I repeat.

The screen switches to another one with four pictures of children. "Girl", "Boy," it proclaims.

"Are you good?" Dan'yel asks.

I nod my head, focused on the screen in front of me.

I'm totally absorbed in the program for a long time. But out of the corner of my eye, I see that Dan'yel is getting frustrated. I take the headphones off and go over to him.

"What is wrong?" I ask.

He shoves some papers away, "I'm trying to make an easy encryption key for Abydonian. Like a simple way to take people who know Ancient Egyptian and get them up to speed in translating in a few days. We're going to need a lot of people to translate.

"A lot of people know this language?" I ask. I have only meet Ca'fin and Dan'yel so far that could speak to me. But perhaps they only need a bit of time with me to correct their pronunciation like my Dan'yel.

"No, almost no-one knows it," he confesses, "I've been sort of worrying that we're not going to get enough people to work on the project."

"So," I shrug, "Make a key to my language that doesn't require any prior knowledge of anything but English. Focus on the things they're going to have to use the most. If you want them to translate the ruins that you got so excited about you're just going to have to teach them constellations and planet names, anyway. And if you want them to translate the caves, they really only need the names of the gods and a few other things."

"Wait… This place you're going to show me tomorrow? It has constellation names? Are they symbols like on the Stargate?" he asks, looking excited enough that I think he's about to run back to the General.

"No…" I pause. "But they make the same sound."

"So could you write them down in glyphs?" he asks, demonstrating with his finger what a "glyph" is.

I wrinkle my brow, "Can you say these, husband?" I ask, pointing to the glyph.

He nods, pronouncing one of them.

I smile, "Then I could read the wall to you, and you could write them in these," I point out. I try to look sad as I say, "It will take a good deal of time."

"Oh, we won't have to do all the translating. On our first trip we'll probably just stay a couple of days, and get pictures."

He doesn't miss my disappointed face.

"Hey, Sha're, its ok. We'll be back before you know it."

The rest of the day I divide between learning English on the computer and helping my husband with his pronunciation as he writes a dictionary of my language.

*Jack's famous omelets. Poor woman isn't getting a representative sample of Earth food. And Dan'yel stopped Jack from adding cheese.

**Of course, she also doesn't have security clearance to get back on base without Daniel. But she doesn't know that yet.

***I know that in the show, Daniel found that place after poking around for about a month. But this story is AU. And I sort of have to up Sha're awesomeness, because she's married to man whose awesomeness knows no bounds.


	6. Of One Flesh

This time there is a swear word in English. And the material in this chapter is on the higher range of the T rating. Nothing explicit. But they do discuss birth control and other personal matters.

Back in the room, I go into the bathroom first. I put on the fancy undergarments that we bought at the special store.

I go into the larger room, and Dan'yel has the same look on his face that he had on our wedding night.

"You never got to see them on me," I explain. He wets his lips subconsciously, and I walk toward him. "Do we know each other well enough, husband?" I ask.

He looks away from me. Just like I did when he tried to write on our wedding night. "Sha'uri. Before we… I have to know why you want to do this."

"You are my husband,"I say in surprise.

"No we… We can't do this just because you think you have to. Just because we're married. When we have sex, every time we have sex, it will be because both of us wanted to. Never because we felt we had to."

If I didn't want to before, I certainly would want to now! I practically run the few steps between him and I begin to kiss him.

He pulls away, "Sha'uri?" he questions.

"I love you, Dan'yel. I… Want this," I say.

"Thank God," he mutters, joining the kiss and running his hands over my back. Then - at last! - Dan'yel begins to remove my clothing. I return the favor, and I'm almost certain that we are going to get our honeymoon at last. Then his shorts come off.

"Dan'yel, you forgot to shave," I point out.

He touches his face, "What?" he asks in confusion. I like the fact that I can render my genius of a husband almost in league with a half-wit.

"You forgot to shave," I repeat, pointing to the area that I mean.

"Men don't shave down there," he says with certainly.*

"Yes, they do," I repeat, laughing at him. I'm not quite sure why my husband being a barbarian is funny to me. I should just be grossed out. But just thinking of my gorgeous husband being…

"Ok, you really need to stop laughing at it!" Dan'yel says, pulling the shorts he wears beneath his pants back on.

Suddenly I realize what is going on, "You were young when your parents died?"

He nods his head.

"Your father was not there… to teach you. I'll do it for you," I say, hopping up.

"Sha'uri, you're not going to shave me!" he exclaims.

"I don't mind," I explain.

"I do!"

"Didn't Sara ever explain to you…" I begin.

"On Earth, men don't shave anything but their faces!" he exclaims.

"What?" I say, stunned, "Your race has… bathrooms… and machines which move quickly… and other machines that see inside of your body, and you live like barbarians!"

"Sha'uri, this is not living like a barbarian," he protests, like I'm suggesting something ridiculous.

"You bathe with all that water every day, and yet you refuse to shave!" I say.

"Let's just let this go, Sha'uri," he says with a sigh, laying down on the bed and facing away from me.

"Ok, but we're not having sex until you shave," I inform him. Hey, he just said we both have to want to, didn't he? And as sexy as my husband is, he isn't sexy like this.

"Seriously, Sha'uri?" he says, rolling over, "You've been trying to talk me into this since we got married, and now… seriously?"

"You're the man. I don't think you'll last as long as me," I say with a grin.

"We'll see, Sha'uri… We'll see."

He'll crack, right? Silence.

"Damn it, Sha'uri!" he stays, stomping into the bathroom.

"Dan'yel?" I ask with a laugh.

"Just don't go to sleep quite yet," he mutters.

"I'll wait for you, husband," I promise, as he shuts the door.

He emerges a few minutes later. "Just don't laugh this time. I'm feeling pretty ridiculous."

"There is nothing to laugh at this time," I say, grinning at my husband without clothes.

He grins at me, and comes over to the bed. Then he puts a small shinny thing over himself.

"Earthlings wear their fertility charms in odd places," I mutter.

He freezes.

"What?" I ask.

"You think it's a fertility charm! Sha're… This thing I'm wearing… It will keep us from having a baby. I know in your culture, you probably didn't have any way of stopping a pregnancy, but…"

"Says the barbarian. Of course we have that!** We use them to keep children far enough apart, and after we've had enough kids. But you don't want to have a baby with me? Not even one?" I ask, trying to keep the pain out of my voice.

"Oh, Sha'uri," he says, holding onto my shoulders. "I want to have a baby with you. I want to have babies with you. Just not yet. In America, babies cost a lot of money."

"No, they don't," I protest, "Babies are free. Your parents must have died before they gave you the facts of life."

"Ok, so the babies don't actually cost money. But all the things they need do. Food and clothes and strollers and toys and diapers and bikes and…"

I don't know what most of these words mean, but I tell him, "Our baby won't need all of those things."

"I grew up without them, Sha'uri, my baby isn't going to," he says. "And a house. I want a house before we have kids. At least an apartment. Sha'uri, I don't want to wait forever. Just a while, until we're ready."

"But we'll have a kid someday?" I ask.

"In a year or two we'll start trying," he says.

I nod my head.

"You still want to?" he asks, placing a hand on my bare thigh.

"Yes," I say, attacking his mouth with some ferocity.

"Ok," he agrees, flipping me under him.

In the amazing ending to our lovemaking I hear him mutter, "And the two shall become one flesh."

That is exactly what just happened. The two became one flesh. That is what has been happening since we met. I'm becoming him. But he's becoming me to.

"I love you," I say.

"Mmmmm," he mutters, obviously more asleep than awake. But that's ok, and I'm pretty that is the most beautiful word in the English language.

*Ancient Egyptians of both genders shaved EVERYTHING. Ok, woman left on the eyebrows, and sometimes either gender would leave short hair on their heads, especially in the lower classes. (A lot of Ancient Egyptians used wigs). But body hair of any kind would disgust an Ancient Egyptian in much the same way that not bathing for two months would disgust a modern American. I realize in the first episode of the series, Sha'uri herself was not shaved. But I'm going with the real Ancient Egyptian culture. I didn't read about it for days and days for no reason.

**Only read if you really want to know about Ancient Egyptian birth control. I warned you. Ancient Egyptians used crocodile dung as a diaphragm. Nasty, but judging by family sizes, comparable in effectiveness to modern methods, which considering we are talking about five thousand years ago, is impressive.


	7. The Meaning of Home

For the first time in our marriage, I am actually the one who wakes up first. Dan'yel is lying next to me on the bed, looking happier than he has since I met him. He's always gorgeous, but he's more gorgeous when he's sleeping. I move slightly so that I can get a better look at him. But it causes him to peal one of his beautiful blue eyes open.

He grins at me. Then he sits up and looks past me.

"What are you looking at?" I ask.

"The clock, I was just checking to see if we had time for this," he says, kissing me. I don't know what a clock is, but I've also discovered that if I ask for definitions for everything someone says I'll never get anything done.

"I see," I say pulling away from his mouth, "And do we have time for more than that?"

He nods his head.

Two hours later, and I am wearing the strange green clothing that they call "gear" and standing in front of the gate. Gear includes not only the strange green clothing, but also a heavy backpack. The team going through the gate consists of Dan'yel, Oneel, Fetti, and Kol'see.

I was hoping that there would be someone on the other end of the gate to meet us. But I know that this was a foolish wish. After all, there was no way for anyone to know that we are coming. But it feels like home right away. The air is thin here, harder to breathe. It is warm, and there are the proper number of moons in the sky.

We take the long walk to the mines. Skaara sees us as we come over the hill. He comes running to me. This is the homecoming that I was picturing.

"Oneel!" Skaara exclaims, with much excitement.

I feel a choke in my throat, and feel myself longing all the more for the children that I am not going to have for a few years. I want to take care of someone. Have someone need me. Dan'yel needs me. But not as desperately as Skaara used to when he was very small.

"Sha'uri! Does married life find you well?" Skaara exclaims, giving me the hug that I wanted before. I guess I don't mind being the second one to be greeted since my greeting involved much more warmth than Oneel's.

"Yes," I say.

"Brother," Skaara says, taking Dan'yel into his arms. Dan'yel obviously does not understand the word, and he looks toward me to translate. The problem with this, of course, is that I do not know the English word for this.

"The son of your parents," I explain.

"Brother," Dan'yel repeats, grinning and slapping Skaara on the back. The smiles are coming to my husband's face more and more easily as the days pass.

I ask Skaara to join us in the cavern. He says that he cannot, because he has work to do. We both know that this is a lie. He has been afraid of the cavern since he was a little boy. There are some stories of the place being haunted by the spirits of the gods. I know that this is just a story that was created by Ra in order to keep people away. I think Skaara probably knows that too. But that isn't necessarily a reason for all the fear to disappear.

When we enter the cavern, Dan'yel becomes very excited. He asks me to read a few glyphs to him. He translates them into our letters. Then he scribbles the glyphs down and hands them to Kol'see. Kol'see and Fetti leave the room.

"Where are they going?" I ask.

"They are checking to see if they can make the gate connect to the address," Dan'yel explains.

"Are they going to another world?" I ask concerned.

"Oh no, not yet," he explains. "They are just going to see if it works."

Dan'yel points a machine at the wall, and makes the machine make a bright light.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"I'm talking pictures. It's a way to save the image for later," he says.

"The pictures just stay in the machine forever?" I ask, not really seeing the point of this machine.

"No, when we get back to Earth they can be copied off."

"Copied? Something I could hold?" I ask, growing excited.

He smiles.

"Oneel! Take a picture of Dan'yel!" I plead.

Dan'yel tilts his head at me in surprise. "We don't have any pictures. I want a picture of the two of us as well."

He hands the camera to Oneel. Then he puts an arm around me. Our heads tilt together, and a grin covers my face.

We hear a noise at the mouth of the cavern, and we all turn. Oneel is pointing his weapon at the sound. He yells in annoyance at Dan'yel. Dan'yel levels his small weapon on the noise.

"Nei-nay!" Abba says, throwing his hands up in the air.

"No!" I exclaim, trying to put myself between the men and Abba. But there is no need, as they have already lowered their weapons, and Dan'yel is walking toward Abba, calling him "good father" and saying all kinds of nice and pleasant words.

Abba bows before Dan'yel, before he turns to me. "Daughter, I have missed you," he says.

I believe him. And suddenly I realize that I have missed him as well. My whole life, I have thought that I had very little connection with my father. But after only a few days without him, I realize that his presence did mean something.

We spend three glorious days on Abydos. Between the meals and the sleeping we do nothing but take pictures and translate. Kol'see and Fetti try to get the gate to open to other planets several times. But each time they return, saying it did not work. Before we go home Dan'yel tries the addresses himself a few times. Each time the gate twists several times, but always stops before making the strange light substance burst out of the gate.

At last, he gives up, and he lights up the gate for Earth. I find myself thinking again that I am returning home. What a pleasure it is to have two homes.

We go to the infirmary, and they take some of the blood of everyone that went to Abydos. After that, we go to the room above the gateroom, and sit around the table. I don't catch very many words that are said at the meeting, and Dan'yel is much too busy translate. He is, after all, doing much of the talking.

When it is over, Oneel talks into the talking machine. Everyone else has left except for Dan'yel and I. Dan'yel is pretending to read. I know he is pretending, because when I first saw Oneel's face as he talked on the phone, I tapped his paper, telling him to listen. He nodded his head in order to inform me that he was already listening.

When Oneel gets off the phone, Dan'yel stands up. He walks over to him, and beginnings talking softly. Whatever he says annoys Oneel, because Oneel tries to leave. I stand between Oneel and the door, "No!" I say.

"Sha're," he pleads, making a puppy dog face.

"Number!" I demand.

Oneel turns to look at Dan'yel. My husband grins, it's a word that he taught me just this morning. The talking machine has numbers on it. You have to press them in a certain order to get a certain person. Dan'yel speaks to Oneel for a little while. Oneel scribbles some numbers on a paper. I look at my husband which gives me a nod of his head indicating that I should let Oneel pass.

Before I do I lean forward, and pull Oneel into a hug. His whole body is tense against me. "Oneel, Sara is…" I don't know the word in English so I use one in my language. But he figures out the word anyway. I can tell by the way that his body relaxes into the hug.

"Ok, Oneel, ok," I comfort him.

Oneel leaves after the hug. "What did he give you?"

"Sara's number. What am I going to say to her?" he asks.

"Tell her that Oneel is a good man. That he doesn't want to die anymore. That he needs one more chance."

Dan'yel plops into a chair. He sits with his eyes closed for a long second. "I hope trying this doesn't just break his heart all the more," he mutters.

We go back to our room before Dan'yel makes the call. He talks to her for a long time.

"Sha're… She wants to meet you," Dan'yel explains, after he puts the talking machine down.

"We can do that," I say.

"No… ah… it's a girl-only thing," he says, his eyes crinkling, "An Air Force wives thing."

"What is the Air Force?" I ask.

"Well… I'm not actually Air Force. Jack is, but she said that I was close enough."

I shrug my shoulders.

"The job… The green pants," he explains.

"But without you, I can't talk to her," I remind him.

"I thought Catherine could go with you. She's not an Air Force wife, but at least she's a woman who works in the Air Force."

I'm terrified of the prospect of going outside of the mountain without him. But I know that I need to do this. I don't want to depend on my husband forever. And if, someday, I'm going to be able to go to the market by myself, or have a job, or take care of a baby in this strange American way, I'm going to have to get used to doing these sorts of things by myself.

"Yes," I say with a smile. "Just give me time to shower. Otherwise I might smell like a yak."

"We've got a couple of hours, but I need to get you an ID."

"The shiny things you show the guards?" I ask. He nods his head.

Two hours later, Ca'fin and I get into a car. Ca'fin talks cheerfully all the way, comparing our two cultures. About halfway there she suddenly looks at me with a sigh. "What are you nervous about?

"I don't understand what 'Air Force wives' means," I say.

She smiles. "Honey, it's the tightest group of people you've ever seen. They will protect you. They will take care of you. They will help you do anything that you want to do. You're lucky. Sha're. This is a community."

We pull up in front of a restaurant. "Sha'uri?" a tall blond woman asks. She is careful to pronounce my name correctly.

"Hello, Sara," I say with a smile.

She takes a step forward, and pulls me into a bone shattering hug.

"Do you speak English?" she asks.

"Only a little bit," I stammer.

"You must be smart!" she exclaims and Ca'fin translates.

"Thank you," I say.

"Where are you from?" she asks. Ca'fin adds a warning not to tell the truth to her translation.

I would not have been so foolish, "Egypt."

"Where in Egypt?" she asks.

I hope that I am not looking as panicked as I feel. I don't know any places in Egypt.

"Abydos," Ca'fin offers easily.

Now I know that my shock must be showing on my face. "It's ok, there is a city in Egypt called Abydos. I'll tell her that you thought that was classified. That will explain your discomfort, and your shock."

"Come on, you've got to meet the rest of the wives," Sara says, after Ca'fin translates.

"Are you still a wife?" I ask. Ca'fin pauses, asking if I am sure that I really want to say that. I nod.

"You're very direct aren't you?" Sara asks. "I know that I should stay with him. What kind of a monster leaves her husband two months after his son dies? But my son died, too. I can't do any more," her voice drops to a whisper. And so does Ca'fin's as she translates. "Can't lose anymore."

"You won't lose him," I tell her. "He's changed. When I first met him, there was no life in him. Now there is. He's ready to start living again. I'm not sure he can do that without you. And I'm not sure you can do that without him."

She looks at Ca'fin as long as the translation happens. At the last word her eyes turn to me in shock and surprise. "You think… You think he could help me? If you honestly believe that, then he has really changed on this last mission."

"He has helped me," I confess. I can see that she's affected by what I'm saying, but still uncertain. "It's scary to love," I tell her.

She nods her head, "I'll come home tomorrow."

"Tell him?" I beg.

"We'll go in and give you some privacy, dear," Ca'fin offers first to her, then translating for me.

When we enter the restaurant, one young woman pokes the slightly older one next to her and they all look at me. There are three of them at the table, and one is holding a baby.

"Are you Sha're and Catherine?" the baby holder asks.

"Yes," I say with a smile. She hands her baby to another and gives me a hug too, but it isn't as tight as Sara's was.

"Come and sit," she says, pulling me toward the table.

They stand up one by one to give me a hug, as well as throwing their strange English names at me. The rest of the words Ca'fin translates.

"How old are you? You look so young!" one of them gushes.

"Marci, hush!" the oldest one, Lainie, scolds.

"Nineteen floods," I say.

"Yes! I'm still the youngest!" Marci exclaims.

"How old is your husband?" the quiet and suspicious baby holder (she look her baby back from Laine when Laine wanted her hug), Anna, says.

"I'm not sure," I mutter.

She bites her lip at hearing this, "Sha're, do you want to be here?"

"Sure, you guys are great," I assure, them not wanting to seem ungrateful.

"I mean here, like America. I mean… Do you want to be married to your husband?" As Ca'fin translates this, I can see that she shares the woman's concern.

"I miss my home sometimes. But I still get to visit it. There is no way I would ever go back to not being married to Dan'yel."

Anna smiles at this, but it's the kind of a smile you give a small child, patronizing.

Sara comes and slides into the seat next to Marci. She looks like she's been crying. Marci throws an arm around her shoulder, "What happened?"

"I just talked to Jack," she says.

"Hurt, cheating, or doing something dangerous?" Lainie asks.

"No, nothing like that. I'm… going to go back to him. He sounds… better. Not good, but…" she pauses, and Lainie squeezes her shoulder again. "It's not going to be easy, but he's Jack, and I love him."

"Good for you," Lainie says.

Anna grabs onto her hand. She looks up and smiles at me. I pat her hand, because I've already figured out these girls are pretty big on physical contact.

A woman comes and stands next to us. They take turns saying something to her. Then Ca'fin asks me what I want to eat. I ask for anything without milk. Ca'fin orders something called a hamburger for me.

"No dairy?" Marci moans. "That sucks! Simon's sister has gone gluten free. It's a pain in the butt every time she comes over!"

"How is Dave's mission going?" Anna says gravely.

Lainie's face goes even more serious than usual, "I don't know. It's all classified."

I look to Ca'fin for an explanation of that word. It talks some time before I figure out it has something to do with secrets.

"You guys don't know what your husbands do?" I ask.

"Welcome to the Air Force," Lainie says, "Now that you're not part of his missions, you'll be out of the loop too.

"No, I get to go with my husband when he goes back to Abydos," I tell them.

"Just wait until he gets assigned to another base," Anna says.

I try not to let them know I'm panicking. What if Dan'yel is assigned somewhere else?

"It's ok," Lainie says, "Sara says your husband…" she squints at me.

"Daniel," Sara supplies.

"Right. Daniel just started working with Jack, so he'll probably be here a couple of years," Lainie smiles.

Marci starts pounding on the table, "What's the name of that Italian?"

"Jasmine?" Lainie asks.

"If we're trying to connect her to the foreign wives I think we should go Arab rather than European. Egypt has a lot of Muslims right?" Anna asks.

I look at Ca'fin, asking her to explain. "Muslim is a person from one of Earth's religion. Ah… Some people on Earth believe in a god besides Ra. A god that… Isn't like yours. No one sees him."

"I don't think I want to meet the people who worship gods," I mutter.

"Well, I worship a God, honey," Anna says.

"Does he… Kill those who won't serve him?" I ask. Ca'fin's eyes bulge when she hears the question. Sympathy covers their faces when they hear her repeat it. There is a moment of silence.

"Whoever killed in the name of your god isn't going to get you here," Lainie assures me, fiercely holding my hand. "That's what our husbands are fighting to protect us from, right?" she says.

The woman comes back, and places food in front of us. I have to ask Caf'in how to eat the "hamburger" and "fries", but it turns out that they are all finger foods. I devour it in no time.

"You're done eating?" Anna asks, "Would you mind holding the baby while I eat?"

"I'd love to," I say, taking the little one. "What is this one called?"

"Tyler."

"He is a lovely child," I say.

" Are you and Daniel planning on having kids?" Sara asks. There is great sadness in her eyes as she says it, and I remember that she lost her son.

"Not right way. He says it's because he wants to get a house first, but I wonder if he doesn't think I can do all of this…" I say, waving at the pile of what I assume is baby stuff on the floor.

"That?" Anna says. "Oh honey, you don't need all of that. You just love them and feed them and you've got it taken care of."

"I could do that," I say, cooing at the baby in my native tongue.

"As far as a house is concerned, I know of a couple available on base. There's one that's a rent-to-own situation. I could get you the information on them," Lainie says.

"That would be wonderful. Dan'yel hates living in the room on base," I say.

"Oh, that sucks! You're stuck in the mountain?" Marci says sympathetically.

"It's… Compared to where I come from, it's great," I murmur, confused. I'm getting a look of sympathy from everyone. I shouldn't mention Abydos anymore. "It was… a good place," I mutter.

Anna smiles at me, "Sha'uri… Feel free to say no if you don't want to, but I've always wanted to have any kids I had learn a foreign language, and they are the best at it during their first year of life. I'm wondering if you wouldn't speak… What is your language? What do they speak in Egypt?"

"Arabic right?" Lainie says.*

Ca'fin smiles at both of us before explaining, "She speaks a rare dialect called Abydonian."

"I don't think it would be a very useful language for your son to learn," I say, grinning at the tiny baby. The baby grins back, and my heart soars.

"I don't know, the way the world is going, it could be the most useful language of all," Ca'fin mutters.

"I'd really appreciate it if you'd just talk to my son in your native tongue," Anna says, looking at me.

"Little one," I murmur the term of endearment I have not said since my brother was tiny. Girls will let you call them that word until they have reached seven or eight. But it is rare for a boy to tolerate it beyond his second year.

"Abydonian," Anna grins, "I like the sound of it."

The baby starts to cry. Anna holds out her hands to take him back. "Show me how to fix it," I plead.

"I think he needs a diaper change, and you don't want to do that," she says.

"I want to know how the people of Earth take care of their children."

"Ok, let's go to the bathroom," she says with a shrug.

The method of swaddling Earth babies is not that different from how we do it on Abydos. I'm beginning to feel that I can do handle this.

*Lainie is correct. And Air Force wives are way more aware of world affairs than average. At least in my experience.


	8. The Assistant of my Husband

Sorry for my super long absence! Turns out that getting a house is a lot of work. Who would have thought? But I have only ¼ of a box that isn't unpacked, my shed is no longer half filled with beer cans, and my basement is now clean. So I can finally sit down without feeling too guilty! I hope to be writing pretty regularly again. I hope.

When it comes time to pay for lunch Lainie insists on paying for both Ca'fin and I. But she also goes into a great explanation of how Earth money works and the strange things called tax and tip. I find that money is far more complicated than I ever imagined, but also…for the first time since I came to Earth I actually feel like I can learn these things.

The girls all seem impressed when the car shows up for Ca'fin and I. Apparently, there are social things attached to these cars I don't understand. I gather though, that it is the fact that the car is black that is impressing them. *

Once we arrive back on base Ca'fin asks me if I can find my way back to my husband. I am suddenly panicked, thinking she is going to leave me.

"I'm going to walk back with you Honey, I just want you to lead," she tells me.

I relax and smile at her. They have been good for me, trying to push me to be more independent. I need that. I love Dan'yel way too much to make him have to take care of me for the rest of my life.

"Sha'uri!" he explains when I finally (after a few detours that Ca'fin helped me out of) get back to his lab, "Did you have fun?"

I nod. But it was more than just fun it was…incredibly liberating.

"Thank you!" I tell Ca'fin. She nods her head and leaves the room.

"One of the wives, Anna, asked me over to her house on Friday. Will you permit me to go?" I ask him.

"Permit you to go? Sha'uri you do not need my permission. You are a full-fledged adult. You can go wherever you want with whom you want. I'm your husband not your father."

He certainly isn't like my father. "Ca'fin said she'd go with me to translate when I went to Anna's. But Anna wants her baby to learn to speak my language!"

"That's great," he says.

"You're trying to translate glyphs?" I ask. Now I feel a little guilty, I know that he can't do that without me. I shouldn't have been out with my friends.

"I was actually just getting everything organized. Are you free? If you can read me the gyphs I can create a cipher so…"

I nod my head, and begin reading the gyphs off one by one. He translates the sounds I make into Abydonian letters as well as his English** ones. We're at it for a couple hours when suddenly Oneel bursts into the room.

"Sha'uri! You're my hero," he says pulling me up and swinging me around with me in a bone crushing hug. Dan'yel translates everything he says.

"Jack?" Dan'yel says looking at him somewhat amused.

"Sara is coming home! I have a date with her in an hour, and she's coming home tomorrow! And apparently I have your little wife to thank for this!" he explains.

"I'm glad Sara came to her senses Oneel, can you please set me down now?" I say.

"What did you say to her? What do I do so I never mess this up again?" he exclaims setting me down.

"Just be you. She's in love with you. She's just afraid of losing you. She didn't want to watch you destroy yourself. If you don't do that you'll be fine," I say.

"You saw Sara right? Is she ok?" he asks.

"Yeah. She's good, sad," I confess.

"We have that in common," he says.

"I know," I say.

"But seriously, thank you," he says. "What are you doing in here?" he asks looking at the papers that Dan'yel has sprayed around his office.

Dan'yel explains not bothering to translate for me. Oneel points to me and glares at Dan'yel as he says some more words.

"He says…he thinks I'm using you as slave labor. Maybe he's right, you come from a different culture. You know you don't have to do this right? I mean I'll like you just as much even if you don't help me," Dan'yel says.

"Dan'yel, I like translating with you," I assure him. Then I flash a smile to Oneel so that he'll know Dan'yel is translating accurately.

Oneel gives me a nod in return. Then he leaves the room slightly bashfully, no doubt from his earlier display of emotion. Oneel hates emotions.

"Sha'uri you can do something else," Dan'yel says.

"How can you translate without me?" I ask.

"I actually have a good base for translating, I can just apply the cipher."

"Ok, then I can learn English, make the machine work!" I point.

"You don't want to relax do something fun?" he asks.

"Learning is fun!" I exclaim.

"A woman after my own heart," he says with a smile.

He's barely got the program up and running when a woman burst into the room. She's tall and blond and beautiful and I really hope this isn't Dan'yel's Sara. She scolds at my husband for a bit.

Dan'yel stand near her and says something which contains the words "no" "wife" and "translation".

"What?" I ask Dan'yel.

"She thinks we're giving her bad addresses, but she must have messed up the computer. I know that the addresses that we give her are correct. I told her that my wife does not make mistakes!"

"Well that is very kind of you, but I can't be certain that that is all together true."

His eyes flash at the woman, "She certainly can't accuse you of being wrong."

"Dan'yel, what other reasons could there be that the addresses aren't right?" I ask.

He pauses, and looks at the woman. Then he starts talking using lots of arm movements as he goes. She grins, and says, "I knew I'd like you." It's the first full sentence I've understood in English. And I'm not so sure I like it.

I put out my hand, "Sha'uri wife of Dan'yel," I proclaim.

She says a few words that I don't understand before she says, "Dr. Samantha Carter."

"Car?" I ask. Is she named after a machine?

"Carter," Dan'yel corrects placing a hand on the small of my back. It's still electric. Good.

Then she and my husband have an excited chat before she leaves. "She thinks that she can fix the problem now."

The talking machine rings, and Dan'yel picks it up. A grin covers his face, "Sha're…did you talk to them about getting us a house while you were out?"

"We mentioned it," I admit nervously.

"There is a house. They want us to go look at a house," he says.

"Is that alright, husband?" I ask.

"Yes, Mrs. Jackson's its amazing."

He talks on the phone for a little bit. When he is done I ask him, "What do you mean by calling me Mrs. Jackson?"

"Jackson…that's a last name. Everyone who is in the same family has the same last name. When you married me you took my last name." We begin walk down the hall, apparently to see our new house.

"I don't have a last name to give you," I say in distress.

"It's ok, husbands usually give their last names to their wives. And then wives give up the last name that they used to have, and take the new one. So your name, according to Earth standards is, "Sha'uri Jackson."

"Written in Earth letters?" I ask.

He nods his head, "On your American documents they are going to be written in Earth letters. If you want to use your letters for other things that would be fine.

"I want to learn to write my name soon," I tell him. "And what are documents?"

"You know birth certificates, marriage certificates, social security cards."

I stare at him blankly.

"No you don't know. In America the government needs to have your papers before you do anything. Get a job or a house for example."

No. "So we can't get a house because I don't have any papers?"

He smiles, "We could probably get by with just my paper's anyway. But you do have papers Sha'uri. They made them for you when you came here. They say you grew up in Abydos Egypt, and that you and I were married when I was over there."

I breathe a sigh of relieve, "Good husband, I am glad that I will not be the reason that you do not get your dream."

"You are my dream, Sha'uri."

When we reach the "surface" of the mountain we do not get into a car like we have every other time. Instead, we start walking. Soon we are walking down streets full of colorful houses.

Lainie and another woman are standing in front of one of them. She and Dan'yel talk so quickly that he doesn't have time to translate. I don't really mind though, because I have the feeling that I wouldn't be able to understanding this conversation even if it was in my own language.

"Are you ready to see the house?" Dan'yel asks.

I can see that Dan'yel loves the house, but I am just plain overwhelmed. This place is big. Really big. At least it doesn't appear to have any of the strange furniture that the earthlings are so fond of. But it also doesn't have a fire pit. Dan'yel fiddles with some things in the "kitchen" and briefly explains that people cook on these things. I don't know how to do that. And then he goes down a hallway and opens door after door. This house is really big.

"Dan'yel?" I ask in panic. He stops and focuses on my face, "How many children do you want us to have?"

"Children?" he asks nervously.

"This house is big Dan'yel. I'm not sure…I don't want to have dozens of children."

"Dozens?" he panics, "It's a three bedroom! Where the hell would we put dozens of children?"

I wave my hand around the room.

He shakes his head, "In America this is just a normal house. Big enough for two kids maybe someday. Just for us for right now."

"Ok," I mutter nervously.

"Sha'uri we don't need to take this place. If you want to wait," he mutters.

"You love this house, Dan'yel, and every Earth house is going to be a little scary."

He nods his head, "Come see this."

He opens glass doors to an outside. The outside is green. There are a whole bunch of trees. But none of them seem to be bearing crops. I have never seen such a wasteful use of fertile ground before. When the water's come to the Nile we use ever inch to grow our crops.

"Backyard," he says waving a hand around the room.

"Let's buy a house!" I say.

"Ok, these things don't happen in a day you know Sha'uri."

I didn't know, because I know nothing, but I nod anyway. He kisses the edge of my forehead. His lips are forming a smile against my forehead.

"I've got some paperwork to do. I can have Catherine come get you if you're going to be bored."

"All you have to do is write my name in English, and I will be entertained."

He smiles, and copies it down on a piece of paper. I copy the words over and over again. Apparently my practice catches the attention of the person we're buying the house from.***

Dan'yel turns to me, "They want to know if you want to sign for the house too. We don't need you too, but then the house would be in your name. Would be yours as much as mine. I think you should."

"Sign?" I ask.

"Write your name," he says pointing to piece of paper.

"I'm not good at it yet," I say apologetically.

"It's ok, the way you do it will be perfectly fine."

I take the pen and write my name on the paper. Then the other person stands up and holds his hand moving both up and down. He extends his hand to me, and I imitate the motion.

When we get back to the base Oneel is waiting for us in Dan'yel's lab. He demands something of Dan'yel. Dan'yel answers him calmly, but I can tell there is real panic in Oneel's face.

"What wrong Oneel?" I ask.

"Jack, call me Jack," he says. Then he starts using too many words for me to catch.

Dan'yel translates, "He's nervous that Sara isn't going to like him unless he's happy. And he knows he can't be happy."

"Hope, all she wants is hope," I advice for my husband to translate.

"Thanks, Sha'uri," he says. Then he turns to Dan'yel already having a feel for what will need translation.

"Sha'uri," Dan'yel says with a grin. "He got you a job."

"Doing what?" I ask. Everyone is being so kind, but I'm not sure I am actually ready to work. I know Dan'yel is nervous about money, so I will do it. But I will hate to be away from him. I'm scared to be away from him in this world I do not understand and where I can't talk to anyone without Dan'yel or Ca'fin's help.

"He's just getting you paid for being my assistant. A lot of people at my level have an assistant. And they approved you for being mine."

"No," I say shaking my head, "You can't let them pay me for doing nothing. When I make money it will be real."

"Sha'uri, you're doing real work. You've organized this place. You've helped me translate these things. You are by far the most useful assistant I've ever had. If you want this job that is?"

I nod my head.

"It's part time…You'll only get paid for four hours a workday. Which is good. It might convince you to take some time for yourself."

I don't know what an hour is. Or why the people of Earth talk about it so much. "Thank you, Jack," I say. "You'll do great with Sara."

"Good luck, Jack," Dan'yel says.

*Catherine seems to be rich. We see her in a limo in the first movie, and she obviously has a staff in the fifties, late sixties, and two-thousands (did we ever decide on a name for that decade?). So we can assume she always had a staff to wait on her. Therefore I'm going to go ahead and assume that limos are the normal way she gets around. I could be very wrong on that, but oh well.

**She should say "Roman" instead of "English", but she doesn't know that.

***I'm going with the fact that they are doing a "rent-to-buy" thing. It's a handy way of getting around the fact that Daniel was broke a couple of weeks ago, and therefore would have no down payment. Also less cumbersome to write. They don't have to get into a taxi and go to the bank. I don't have Sha'uri mention it, because she wouldn't understand it. It was suggested to me by Lazarus.357.


	9. The Dangers of Cooking

**Sorry for my super long absence! Turns out that getting a house is a lot of work. Who would have thought? But I am al unpacked, my shed is no longer half-filled with beer cans, and my basement is now clean. So I can finally sit down without feeling too guilty! I hope to be writing pretty regularly again. I hope.**

Things have been good since we moved into a house. Dan'yel is happier, especially after he filled the house up with furniture. He tried to get me to come along to the store to pick it out. It was way too much, and I waited for him outside. He literally filled our house with so much furniture; there is barely room to work on anything on the floor. Of course, that's because on Earth they do that work on tables or desks. I'm trying to do that too. But it's weird.

Usually when Dan'yel goes to work, I go with him. Either I help him translate or I learn English on the machine. Usually some mix of both. But today Dan'yel has one of those long meetings that they call "briefing". So I leave before he gets started.

I have big plans for the afternoon as well. This world has something called "take out". We usually eat that on the nights that we don't eat at the mess hall. Sometimes Dan'yel cooks on the strange Earthan "stove" where you can't even see the fire. The food he makes comes from cans or tubes or boxes.

I'm going to cook him a real meal. Yesterday, Sara went to the commissary* with me, and we bought ingredients for a homemade meal. There is some meat here which resembles a Mastage… at least a little. And we got some brown-skinned vegetables the people of Earth like to eat with it.

Sara explained how to cook it to me. It all seemed so simple at the time, but now I'm pretty sure that I'm in over my head. All the things are in a pot inside the "stove". But I don't think it's on. It's not warm at all. And I can't make it work. I keep turning knobs and waiting for it to warm up before I go back and turn more knobs. Still the stupid "stove" is cold as ice.

The briefings aren't brief (particularly when my husband speaks), but this cooking is taking so long that I'm worried my husband will be home before I finish. There is only one thing left to do.

I go into the backyard (I am careful to leave the door open. I was locked out once, and had to wait until Dan'yel returned. I always keep my key with me now, but I'm also careful not to shut the door). I start pulling sticks off the tree until I make a pile in the middle of the yard. Then I go back into the house and find a lighter.

It's a nifty way of making fire. People of Earth keep them around even though they don't actually use fire that often. Except Jack, he likes to keep a strange fire close to his mouth. I take the lighter out the yard and get a good fire going. I don't have time to construct a proper spit so I just stab the meat with a stick and hold it over the fire. I throw the vegetables in as they are. After all, Sara told me that most people don't even eat the skin.

The meal is almost successfully cooked when I hear Dan'yel yelling my name.

"Out here, husband," I tell him.

"Sha'uri!" he exclaims, running out and hugging me briefly. Then he pulls me away wearing the face that Abba used to wear when he scolded me.

"I made you dinner," I say holding the meat up.

"I can see that. Sha'uri… we don't just start a fire on the grass. If we're going to have a fire often, we'd better get a fire pit. And fire wood. What did you do to the trees?"

"I…" I attempt to explain, but find that no words come.

"And Sha'uri, we've got to have a primer on the stove."

"I think it's broken!" I protest.

"Sha'uri you've got all the burners on full blast."

"But the inside wouldn't get hot."

"You turned the stove on, not the oven," he says.

"Alright, what harm is there in that?" I ask.

"A great deal!" he exclaims, with something I would mistake for anger if I thought that my husband would get angry at me. "You could have burnt yourself if you touched it. Or if fabric ended up touching it you could have started the whole house on fire!"

"I'm sorry," I say, really worried about how mad he is right now.

He looks at my face, and the lines on his own face soften a bit, "Look, I'm sorry. It isn't right of me to yell at you. It's just that I was really worried about you. I couldn't stand…" he closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, he tucks a bit of my hair behind my ear, "I couldn't stand if anything happened to you. It would just about kill me. Do you understand that? You have to be careful."

I start to cry.

"Sha'uri," he says, holding me tight against his chest.

"I can't even make a meal for my husband," I sob. "I'm the worse wife ever!"

"Not even close," he says, pulling me away so that I can look in his face. "You're a really good wife. You are by far the best assistant I've ever had. You keep me organized, and help me translate. I can get twice as much done as I could without you. You keep my office and the house completely spotless, which is not easy when you're living with someone who is as much of a slob as I am. You are a great conversationalist. I have not been bored once when you were in the room. And you are the most beautiful creature I have ever laid eyes on. You are everything a wife should be and so much more."

I'm blushing by the end of his speech.

"And you'll learn to cook. Let's just make a rule that you only cook when I'm home. Ok?"

I nod. He starts to walk away, clearly thinking the conversation is over. I grab onto his arm to stop him.

"Dan'yel, you are an amazing husband. You took me even though you did not really want to be married. You make me feel valuable and precious every time you look at me. You take care of me. You find ways for me to take care of you, even though this isn't my culture. You explain the world to me. And your looks are…"

He cuts me off, "You don't have to lie."

I laugh.

"Of course, you don't have to be that honest," he mutters doing that self-hug he always does when he feels insecure.

"Dan'yel, how could you not know that you are one of the most gorgeous men ever to walk the face of my planet or yours?"

He blushes and shakes his head. But he also stops doing the self-hug. "I love you, Sha'uri," he tells me.

Samantha's machine has found an address for my husband to go visit. Most of the people that I know are going to go visit this planet: Samantha, Dan'yel, and Jack are all going to a place that her machine discovered.**

Dan'yel decided that I could not be trusted by myself. (He used all sorts of fluffy words about not wanting me to be lonely. But I could tell his motivation was an image of the house in flames). So I am staying with Sara while they are away.

I feel like such a nuisance,needing to be watched like I am a small child. And to Sara I am. She is almost as old as my Omm would be if she had lived.

I try to make myself useful, but there isn't much to clean in Sara's house. She keeps it pretty clean already. So she decides to give me lessons on how to cook. She uses a book while cooking. I can read a bit of English now. Dan'yel gets me children's books that are, as he says, "worthy of being read by an intelligent adult." But I can't make head or tails of Sara's cooking book. It has lots of fraction measurements in it. She tries in vain to explain them to me before we decide to cook without them. We cook by "cups" and "teaspoons" instead of this unit of measure they call "fractions".***

The first thing that we make is cookies. Sara has to do most of the measuring for them. Then she puts them in the oven and figures out by using a clock when they should be taken out. A clock is another Earth thing that doesn't make any sense to me. Sara gives me my first lesson on time, and by the end of it I understand that it has to do with hours, and that they use them so they can all show up at a place at the same time. But I still can't read a clock.

"Do cookies normally make that smell?" I ask some time later.

"Shoot!" Sara exclaims, rushing over to the oven. I'm trying to figure out what she wants me to use their weapon on and where she keeps it. She puts a piece of fabric on her hand, explaining as she does it that it is very important to do so or you'll get burnt. She pulls the cookies out and I can see that they are burnt, charred black.

Next, we attempt to make something called lasagna. One of the books I read was about a cat which was quite fond of this particular dish. **** I find this easier to make. There is not so much measuring. You just put all the meat in a dish and stir it with the stick with a flat bottom. Then you put the noodles in the water and keep pulling them out to test them until they are soft when you touch them. Then you put it all together in a certain order and put it in the oven.

The oven part is where we run into trouble. I turn the stove on by accident again, and Sara has to show me how to make sure the burners are off and the oven is on. Then we put the dish into the oven, and Sara marks the time on the clock. Then Sara forgets all about it, and reduces all of our work to a blacked mess that must be thrown away outside, because of the smell.

I'm beginning to think I made a bad choice in a cooking instructor.*****

There is not work to do in the lab while Dan'yel is away, so I spend most of my waking hours (especially the few that Sara is at work) working on the language learning software on their computer. I have been on Earth of only one of their months, but already I have finished one of the five disks, and I can understand a bit of what people say. I'm not nearly so good at speaking the language yet. But I do well enough that Sara and I are alright without a translator. (Although there are a great many things that I can think but not yet say).

The night that Dan'yel comes home, I cook for my husband the first time (or at least the first time that he didn't get angry and afraid).

"So what did you discover on the planet?" I ask him.

"Not much," he mutters with his mouth full, "This is really good, Sha'uri."

I look at him alarmed, but he doesn't even notice. Maybe the Air Force wives were right. Maybe the "classified" is starting now.

"I mean after three days of MRE's pretty much anything would taste good, but this is just plain amazing."

"What did the planet look like?" I ask.

"Oh you know…" he says, casually shrugging his shoulders.

"No I don't know! I've only ever been to Earth and Abydos!" I exclaim, stomping out of the room, and going into our bedroom.

He knocks on the door. I don't answer. After a few seconds he opens it up, and comes to sit down on my bed. "Sha'uri, I don't quite understand what's wrong here," he says softly.

"My husband leaves me for three days to risk his life on some other planet," I reply, "And then when he comes back he can't even tell me about it!"

He looks at the wall for a little bit before focusing back on me, "I'm not quite sure what you want here. Do you want me to quit SG-1, or do you want me to try to get you assigned to an SG team, or…"

"I just want you to be able to tell me about work. I know the other wives… this whole "classified"… it's just something I'm going to have to learn to deal with. I'm sorry, husband. I'm being foolish. They warned me…" I mutter, feeling like he must be disappointed with me.

"No, Sha'uri. I wasn't kidding when I said there was nothing special about that planet. There were some trees… and really that was about it. What I do is classified. But it's a little different, because you are classified too. A lot of those wives, Sara for instance, they don't even know that their husbands travel to different planets for a living. You know a lot about what I do."

"I know I don't have any right to complain. I even sit next to you and help you do it most of the time."

He nods his head, "But if something important ever happened, anything life- or planet-altering, I'd tell you about it. I'd probably be allowed to. But even if I wasn't I'd break the rules for you."

"Really?" I ask.

"Really," he says. "And have I mentioned how impressed I am that you learned to cook like someone from Earth in such a short amount of time? I've been living on Earth my whole life and I'm not nearly as good a cook as you are."

"I just… didn't want to have to have a babysitter anymore," I mutter, before I can stop myself.

He looks at me with pain in his eyes, "I didn't mean to offend you. I don't think of you as a baby that needs to be watched over. I just want you to be safe. You can stay by yourself the next time I go on a trip if you want to."

"You're leaving again?" I complain before I can stop myself.

He smiles, "I like being missed. It's been a really long time since anyone gave a crap about where I was. But no, I won't be travelling for a week or so. Sam's computer only gives us a couple of addresses a month, and Kowalsky's team is talking the other one. Actually I have five days off, and I was thinking of doing a little road trip."

"Road trip?" I ask uncertainly.

"Yes… see on Earth, when people first get married they often take a little trip. Usually it's to someplace really exciting like Hawaii or Mexico. But we only have four days, and since you haven't see much of Earth I figure just about anything would be exciting. And Jack has this cabin up in Minnesota that he said he could use."

"Cabin?" I ask.

"It's a house that…"

"You have a serious house obsession, my Dan'yel," I inform him.

He rolls his eyes, "Anyway it's really pretty country, and you'd get to drive through a big chunk of the United States on your way there. You could see your first big city and the area that we're going is in forests. You've never really seen a forest. I mean you've seen trees here, but they are all planted. None of them are natural. But we don't have to go if you don't want to go."

"Road trip," I say, smiling.

***Correct usage, not the incorrect use described in the TV show. In other words, we're talking a grocery store.**

**** In this story I am going with the pretense that the dialing computer would spit out addressees in the same order as it did on the show. Now this does not mean that they necessarily go to the same planets in the same order. For instance, the planet that they go to in "Children of the Gods" they do not go to in this story. They got the address of that planet from Feretti. He only knew it, because he was attacked on Abydos. That attack won't happen for a year yet. Therefore, we don't have that address. So, Teal'c has yet to join the team, and Kwalsky doesn't have a Goa'uld in his neck, and everyone is a year younger than they were when they started going through the gate in the first episode. This planet Daniel just returned from is the one that the team heads off to at the end of "The Enemy Within." Most planets they are going to visit a year earlier than they would have in the series. Which in and of itself is going to change a lot of things.**

*****Yes, Sha'uri is confused. That is sort of the point.**

******Garfield would be a totally appropriate way to introduce an Ancient Egyptian to American literature. Most of his books (aside from the weird one with an alien which she would probably find offensive although it's somewhat applicable…beautiful alien cat…) involve very domestic American scenes. The words are decently easy to read (unlike most comics). The jokes are adult without being dirty. Most importantly there are pictures to give the English language learner clues about what they are reading.**

*******I'm basing Sara's cooking skill off of the episode "Cold Lazarus" in which she burns a hot dish that her father left in the oven for her. I'm also exaggerating a little bit, because exaggeration is a whole lot of fun. But in my defense, one of my best friends in highs school had my version of Sara's cooking skills. I kid you not. Never once did she fail to burn something she put in the oven.**


	10. The trip of the Road

I try to help Dan'yel get us packed for the trip which we are leaving for early tomorrow morning. But I am just in the way, so eventually I just sit down and let him do all of it for me. He is putting in a lot of clothes, and books, and food.

"Ca'fin was explaining school to me the other day. How the people of Earth spend much of their lives in school. Is packing for a road trip something that is covered in this 'school'?" I ask.

"Ah… no, in fact, it's not really something I've ever done before," he says nervously. For the first time I realize that my husband is doing many things for the first time as well. This is his first time being married, since he refuses to count Sara. This is the first house that he's owned a house. This is his first time working for the Air Force. And he barely knows how to cook.

"Dan'yel," I tell him, "Are you scared like me?"

"You're scared?" he says, with concern, "We don't have to go on this trip you know."

"Scared isn't exactly the right word," I say. Our language is simple enough to begin with, and with Dan'yel, I try to keep to the simplest words so he has no trouble understanding me. "I just mean… I'm trying so many new things that sometimes I wonder if I am not going to be good enough. It just occurred to me that sometimes you might be wondering the same thing. That this is all pretty new for you as well."

He grins at me, "Two clueless newlyweds. We'll help each other out."

The next morning, we leave before the sun is even in the sky. We take a taxi over to Jack's house and then load our things into his car. Apparently we are borrowing it for the weekend as well as letting us use his spare house. Then we drive through the colorful streets that Dan'yel tells me are called "Colorado Springs". Before long, we are seeing fewer and fewer houses. The area also becomes less and less green.

"Why isn't it green out here?" I ask.

"Actually, Colorado is pretty much a desert. They get more rain than you do on Abydos, and we have better ways of cleaning our water, and using it for irrigation. But the only reason things look so nice and green in town is because people water them."

"It seems like a waste to water plants that are not used for food."

"Oh, it is, but in societies where there is a lot of money there are a lot of people willing to waste."

"But it still doesn't look like a real desert out here," I say.

"Well, like I said, Colorado isn't as dry as Abydos or Egypt. But what you are seeing is still the result of people giving plants water. Look on the edge of these fields. See how the fields are square? That's because, that is how people have always bought land in America. We break it up and divide it into convenient little squares. But the actual green part of the field is a circle. That's because the sprinkler they use to irrigate," he pauses to point to a large thin piece of metal on wheels high off the ground in the middle of the field, "Can only reach in a circle. So the edges of the field don't get any water and are brown."

"How do you know all these things?" I say in amazement.

"I don't know, you read and listen and ask lots of questions and you'd be surprised what you can find out."

"Can you teach me the meaning of 'hour'?" I ask.

He smiles and points to numbers on the dashboard of the car, "You picked the perfect time to ask. You see this little six?"

I nod my head.

"That means that we are in the sixth hour of the day. Now these numbers after it, the zero and the two, they mean that we have been in the sixth hour for only two minutes. That's not very long. There are sixty of these little minutes every hour. If we watch the clock when the two turns to a three that means one minute will have passed. Well, probably less. But if you watch the three turn to a four that will give you a better idea. Then, a long time later when the six turns to an seven, you'll know how long an hour is."

I nod my head, keeping an eye on the clock as I begin talking about the next important issue. "How do you know how to make the machine go?"

"Driving? I learned in school. Most people have their parents to teach them, but…" he shrugs. "I can teach you too, but not right away. First you have to take a test. And for this test you are going to have to be able to read and write in English pretty well. Once you've got that down you can take the test, and I can teach you to drive. After that you take a test where you drive in front of a stranger and then you're allowed to drive anywhere."

"There are a lot of Earth things that I want to do before I learn to drive," I say, now that I know how much work is involved with learning this skill.

"That's fine. Although, I am thinking of getting a car for me to drive before too long. It would give us a little bit more freedom."

"No more little yellow taxis," I say.

"That's right." As we drive he teaches me the English words for the things we are passing, and sometimes asks for the Abydonian as well. I also watch the clock, getting a feel for minutes and hours, and even for what time of the day is referenced when someone talks about one of them. I also learn the name of each of the numbers, and get a feel for how many things it means. Dan'yel does the same in my language.

Not long after the first hour has disappeared, we come to more colorful buildings. They get taller and taller as we drive along. Near the center of what Dan'yel explains is a "city" called "Denver", I see buildings that seem to be completely made of something that he calls "glass" and which stretch as high as two of our pyramids stacked on top of one another.

"How do they build something that large?" I ask in awe.

"I'm not sure of the specifics, but I know it wasn't possible until they invented a really strong thing called 'concrete', and a metal called 'steel'," he explains.

We stop near one of them and look at it. Dan'yel asks me if I want to take an elevator up to the top floor. I decline. He offers to let me take the stairs. I know that he doesn't actually want to walk up all those stairs. So I offer to go alone. He goes with me, of course.

After we're done with that, Dan'yel looks at a map for a while to see where to go. I don't understand the concept of maps at all. He keeps trying to tell me that they are laid our just like you would see the world from the sky. But I know that is not right, because I have seen no giant numbers laying across the road, and the colors are horribly off.

Dan'yel has borrowed a small moveable computer from work, so I spend a little of the time learning English with my headphones while he listens to music. (I do not like Earth music much. It is very fast and harsh.)

The landscape starts to change. Here*, there are many animals that Dan'yel calls "cows". They are packed behind fences so close that they can barely even move. Dan'yel tells me that they are the source of the milk and dairy which makes me so sick. Apparently, they are also the source of the horrible smell which exists in this state but not my own.

Dan'yel tries to keep me from hating cows. He tells me about how in other places the cows eat the grass of the land instead of being fed it in low troughs. This means that they have lots of room to move around, and they don't smell so bad. He also tells me they are the source of most of the meat these people eat.

I tell him I'll be glad when we are away from this. He sighs and complains about how fast he's allowed to make the machine go (I think it's moving incredibly fast. Today, he's driven it faster than ever before. He tells me we can move faster when we are not in a city.)

We both get hungry while we are still in the smelly place. Dan'yel tells me we are almost out of it, and we both agree to wait for lunch until the smell clears.

Once in another place, he takes me into a little place called a diner, and we order food. It's the first time I've actually used a spoon and fork in front of anyone but just Dan'yel, and I do it well enough that we don't attract any attention. I also have my first cup of coffee. It's something that Dan'yel drinks every morning. He makes it in a noisy machine that he keeps in the kitchen. He drinks more of it when he is busy, especially when he is busy late at night.

I think that if this "coffee" is something which relaxes my husband when he is stressed it must be something wonderful. I spit my first sip back into the cup. First of all it's so hot that it burns my lips. And the taste is so bitter that I can't imagine actually drinking that on purpose.

"It's horrible! Why would you drink that?" I demand.

He laughs a little. "It's an acquired taste," he explains.

"Why would you want to acquire it?"

He laughs a little, "Coffee keeps you awake when you get too tired."

"But if you are tired, husband, it is because you need sleep," I point out.

"Yes, but sometimes you don't have time to sleep right then, so you drink coffee until you have time to sleep."

"The people of Earth are a foolish people who are always trying to fight nature. You never win a battle against nature," I inform him.

He has a thoughtful look on his face for a long time. "I don't know. There are many times when man has conquered nature in a certain place for a certain time. I suppose you're right in that you can never win the war against nature, but I think people are pretty successful at winning battles against her."

We drive for a long time more. Then when we are going through a small town Dan'yel insists on introducing me to a "drive through window". We drive up post sticking out of the ground. Dan'yel request food. Then we drive forward to a window and they give Dan'yel the food. It is the strangest thing I've ever seen. I can't stop laughing, and beg Dan'yel to do it again.

He does, and this time he gets us something called a "smootie" which is both the strangest and the best Earth food that I have yet tasted. I did not like the hamburger that came from that place though.

When we are clear of the cows, they use the ground to grow many different kinds of food. So I get to see many of the things that I eat every day when they are still growing. After a bit of time we change directions. After some more time we go on smaller roads in order to avoid cities.

Towns fade away, and this thing that Dan'yel called a forest comes into view. There are trees everywhere. Dan'yel stops at a "grocery store" which seems to be much like the "commissary" that Sara took me to. Here we buy some food. As we go he explains prices to me, and gives me the names of the things that we pass by.

Before we go up to pay, he takes out a small flat piece of plastic. It reminds me a lot of the cards we have to use to get back on base once we've left it. Except this card doesn't have anyone's picture on it, but it does have raised numbers. He tells me it's a credit card, and that it works sort of like money.

He tells me how to use it when we pay. I wait until the woman reads off how many dollars it will cost me. Then I hand her the card. Then she hands me a little slip of paper which I write my name on.

I try to hand the card back to him.

"No, it's ok. I actually go that one for you. I thought it was about time that you had your own money to use whenever you wanted or needed to. You have that card, and I have one that is kind of like it. Then at the end of the month they send us a piece of paper which tells us how much money we spent. And I pay them out of our bank account… the place where all the money that you and I make goes."

I smile and nod, "I will use your money wisely, husband."

"Our money, Sha'uri, and I know you will."

After the grocery store, Dan'yel studies the directions which Jack wrote for him for a while before setting out. The roads get smaller and smaller the further in we go. Some of them are not even covered with the hard black stuff that so much of their world is coved in. Some have only rock beneath them.

Finally, we pull up in front of what Dan'yel says is Jack's cabin.** It looks more like trees than any houses I have seen up until now. Dan'yel tells me that all houses are made out of trees, but on this house you can tell. There is also a body of water near the house.

I point to it, which has become our shorthand for asking for a translation.

"Lake," he says, "What is it in your language?"

I shrug my shoulders, "Abydonian doesn't have a word for a body of water that just… sits there like that. We have rivers, of course, but I don't think we have anything you would call a lake."

"I thought we could go swimming in it tonight. I know it's kind of late, but I want to relax a bit before I crash. I had Sam pick out a swimsuit for you. I hope it works. I know you like to avoid the mall whenever you can. And I sort of wanted it to be a surprise," he explains.

We take everything out of the car and put it in the house. Then he hands me the swimsuit. It covers no more than the underwear does.

"So people can only go swimming when they are alone with their husbands?" I ask in surprise. "On Abydos everyone swims, especially the children."

"That is true here. People wear swimsuits in public… in front of other people."

My cheeks blush red. "Ok, well, if we ever go swimming in front of a bunch of other people we can get you a swimsuit that covers more," he says.

He is already changed, and tells me he will meet me by the lake. When I come out a few minutes later he is sitting on a piece of wood with his feet dangling into the water. He turns and grins as he sees me.

He stands up and walks toward me. Then suddenly he turns around and runs down the pieces of wood and jumps at the end. He pulls his knees up by his head and yells "cannonball"! Before splashing into the water.

I look around me nervously, because there is something at Sara's house called a cannonball. She told me that it was something Jack kept from a long dead family member. They used to fight wars with them.

"Come on in, Sha'uri! The water is great!" Dan'yel exclaims.

I walk down the wood, and make a little jump in. He moves toward me holding me in the weightless water.

"Why does your country have some many violent expressions?" I ask.

His face shows confusion, so I say, "Shoot! Cannonball!"

"Good question, Sha'uri," he says, kissing me. My back comes into contact with the dock. "Sorry," he mutters, starting to pull away.

"No," I whisper, pulling him back, and wrapping my legs around his waist beneath the water.

***They're in Nebraska. I'm sorry if you're from Nebraska. I do not have a very high opinion of the state. I used to drive through it twice a year. The speed limits are the lowest in any state I've ever driven through (which is most of them). And the whole state smells like a feedlot. Also the milk tastes funny. This is weird, because milk is usually amazing when you're close to the source i.e. in a state with a lot of cows. But I guess it's because Nebraska cows are clinically depressed or something. I sure as heck would be if I lived in Nebraska, particularly if I were a cow. Granted, my description might be a little off, since I'm used to driving through the state north to south or vice versa and Daniel and Sha'uri are cutting across the state from the southwest corner to the northwest corner. It's possible the whole state doesn't smell like a feedlot, but only the center of it.**

****Fourteen hours in a single day is a lot with only one driver. But doable. When you only have a few days to be somewhere you become very determined to get there in the shortest amount of time possible. I just hope you don't begrudge Daniel his coffee like Sha'uri did.**


	11. Method of Defense

After we came back from our honeymoon, Dan'yel went on another mission. He doesn't get me a babysitter this time. But Sara, Anna, and Ca'fin check in on me enough that I know it is no accident. I can cook now without causing danger. But I still can't bake. You have to use recipes to bake. But Anna is very good at baking. I babysit her son when she and her husband go on weekly dates, and she pays me in baked goods which I appreciate more than money.

Whenever I sit for Tyler I talk in Abydonian. And Anna never fails to throw in a bit of an American lesson when I'm there. This week she showed me a digital clock (which I can read) and an analog clock (which I can't read) and told me to compare the two in order to learn to tell time.

Without Dan'yel, I spend almost every waking hour with the computer learning English. Or reading English or writing English. I stay busy, but I miss my husband.

He comes back after two days, sunburnt and tired. Dr. Fraiser** calls me from the infirmary (I have learned to answer the talking machine even though I can't make it call other people yet) to let me know that Dan'yel is fine but in the infirmary.

He doesn't even greet me as I go to see him a few minutes later (I like having a house that is very close to work), "Sha'uri, could you check on Sam for me?" he asks.

"What happened to her?" I ask, concerned by his concern.

"Nothing, she's not hurt. It was just a tough mission for her." I raise my eyebrows expectantly, waiting for him to continue. He sighs, "We saw her ex-fiancé."

I start to interrupt him.

"On Earth people don't usually get married right after they meet like we did. They usually date for a while and then they get engaged – they promise they'll get married someday. Then after a while they actually get married. When they are engaged they are called fiancés. Sam was engaged to someone, but she decided that she couldn't marry him, so she called off the wedding."

"All of this happened in two days?" I ask.

"No… this happened years ago. Over the course of months or years, probably; I don't know the details. But certainly it took more than two days for it all to happen. But anyway, the man she almost married, he… he hurt a lot of people. He called himself…" he looks at me, worried, "a god." And that would be why. He knows how I feel about people who declare themselves gods. "And we had to… see, Jack killed him. And she had the chance to, and she couldn't do it. And she's just had a rough mission, because she didn't kill him. Because she almost did. Because this was someone she loved, and he went so horribly wrong. I just think…"

"You're really ok? Not in any danger?" I ask.

He nods his head.

Sam is in one of the private rooms in the infirmary. She's sitting on the bed with her feet planted on the bed, and her head between her knees.

I knock on the open door.

"Sha'uri," she greets me with a smile, "I think Dan'yel is…"

"I already saw him," I cut her off, "I wanted to check in and see how you were doing."

"It's kind of him to send you in to check on me, but I really am fine," she tells me with a weary smile.

"What was his name?" I ask sitting down on a chair.

"Jonas," she says.

"Was he a good man once?"

"Never," she says with a shake of her head. "I never do fall for good men."

"Why not?" I ask.

She tilts her head at me. "Why not?" she says with a laugh, "I don't know. Partly because there aren't that many good men laying around. You lucked out with Daniel. But mostly because I as Jonas said, 'am the healer of the emotionally wounded'."

"Well, that sounds like a pretty important title," I tell her.

"Except it never works out. They don't heal, and I just end up getting hurt. But I can't help it. Every time I fall for the same type of guy: a control freak, emotionally unavailable, and just enough male chauvinism that you can never call him on it," she mutters.

"Maybe I should have Dan'yel find you a man?" I suggest, "Or perhaps your father could do it."

She laughs, "I appreciate the effort. But my father is definitely not picking my boyfriends out for me. And I'm really not ready for anyone yet anyway."

"Someday if you change your mind I can help you find someone."

"Maybe," she nods.

"Sam," Dan'yel says, knocking lightly on the door. "The General wants us at a briefing. Do you want me to stall?"

"No, I'm ready," she says, standing up and looking like a soldier.

"I'll see you at home," I say to Dan'yel. The sun is setting by the time that I get above ground. I show my ID to the man at the outside gate. As I put that back in my pocket, I finger the weapon that Oneel gave me a long time ago – the pepper spray. I haven't thought of it very often since that night. There are so many guards around, and my husband is always in far more danger than I am. But I was originally given it because it isn't safe for a woman to walk alone when it is dark out. Right now I am a woman walking alone in the dark. Best to be ready.

I reach my door and start to fumble for the keys. Suddenly, a hand goes over my mouth. "Mrs. Jackson, I presume?" the man pressed against my back hisses in my ear.

I bite the hand and stomp on a foot. Then I turn and spray his eyes with the pepper spray which was already in my hand. He shouts in agony and anger. "Damn alien!" I knee him in groin, and then run.

He is chasing me blindly. It's only two blocks to the base entrance, and he can't run in a straight line while blinded. I might just have a chance of getting away. But I'm not talking any chances. I jump over a knee high fence and rush across a yard. He must have been following the sound of my footsteps, because he losses me as soon as I hit the grass. I'm terrified that when I come out on the other side of the yard there will be more men waiting for me. But the man behind me seems to be all there is.

I'm lucky they don't think much of women. Or aliens. I flash my ID frantically at the guard. "Help!" I plead.

The guard leaves his post to come near me. He asks a question with a lot of compassion, but there are too many words in it for me to understand.

"Help!" I say, looking over my shoulder desperately.

"Who?" he asks.

Who could help me? Well, my husband could at least understand me. "Dan'yel Jackson," I plead.

His gives me a look of surprise, but ushers me into his station. He then talks on the talking machine for a little bit. Before long another man comes and leads me a few floors down. They ask me more questions which I can't understand. Security people ask a lot of long questions.

Soon there are more security people, and these are wearing different clothes than the other. ***

Dan'yel comes over. "Dan'yel!" I explain running toward him. The people on either side of him pull him away. His hands are chained beside him.

"What happened?" I ask in alarm. Maybe this thing is bigger than I thought. Maybe these people have captured Dan'yel and me as well.

"They think I beat you," he says.

"Tell them you didn't!" I exclaim, trying to remove the chains. But they are very secure.

"They don't believe me," he says.

"Tell them I said you didn't beat me," I say.

"Sha'uri," he says.

"Ca'fin!" I exclaim turning to the people around us. "Ca'fin!"

"Langford," he says, with some other English words. "Sha'uri, what happened?" Dan'yel asks looking almost as worried as I looked when I saw the chains.

"Men tried to… take me," I explain.

His eyes go dark in anger, "What did they do exactly? You have to tell me what they did to you."

I shake my head, "He just grabbed at me, and I got away."

"Sha'uri, you have to tell me if something happened to you. I'm going to love you no matter what happened."

I look at my husband trying to figure out what he thinks happened. "Dan'yel, he put a hand over my mouth. He tried to grab me. I bit his hand, and stomped on him, and sprayed him with the weapon Jack gave me."

"Where did he touch you?" Dan'yel asks.

"My mouth and my waist," I say, touching them.

"And he didn't hurt you?" he asks.

"No, but my knee hurts a little."

He raises an eyebrow.

"I kneed him," I say, mimicking the action.

He grins, "That's my girl. Do you know what he wanted?"

"He was trying to hold onto me. He… called me an alien."

"I hope they don't want to make you a… lab rat." I want him to explain, but I hear Ca'fin's voice entering the room.

"Daniel? You people!" She sees me, "Are you ok?"

I nod, "Someone tried to… take me away," I say, trying to reword the explanation in order to avoid whatever confused Dan'yel.

"Who?" she demands.

"I don't know. I've never see him before," I confess.

"Did Dan'yel hurt you? And if he did rest assured that he will be punished, and you will be safe."

"Dan'yel would never hurt me," I say. Ca'fin yells at them in English. They unchain him. He comes over to stand next to me putting an arm around him. My muscles relax for the first time since it happened. I didn't even know they were tight.

I tell the story to Ca'fin and she translates. Suddenly, I hear Oneel's voice coming down the hallway. He is yelling something. He stops in front of Dan'yel, screaming words. I don't recognize any of them but my name.

Dan'yel says something to him. Jack turns and looks at me asking a question.

"He's asking if Daniel hurt you," Catherine says softly.

"Dan'yel is good," I assure him his native tongue.

Oneel asks Dan'yel a question looking at me with concern.

"I am fine," I assure him, guessing that is what he is asking. Then Oneel talks to Dan'yel. I can tell by Dan'yel's answer that he is telling the story of my capture. Some of the security people write down the story as Dan'yel tells it. Oneel slaps me in the back at one point, which I guess is the part where I fought back against the attacker. Once in a while Dan'yel or Ca'fin pauses to ask me a question.

"Why did they want to take me? Because I was a woman walking in the dark? Oneel told me not to do that."

"No, I think… it was because… because you're from another planet. I think some bad people probably wanted to run tests on you."

"Dan'yel… I am thirsty, can you get me some water?" I ask.

He looks suspicious. He probably knows that I'm just trying to get rid of him. But he leaves the room anyway.

"Caf'in… Can you ask Oneel if he will teach me to fight?"

"Fight?" she queries.

"Yes, fight with my hands," I say, nodding.

"Well, dear, I think you're already pretty good at fighting, but I'll ask."

Jack nods his head, "Yes," he says in my own language.

The next day, I tell Dan'yel that I am going to spend some time with friends. It is vague enough that it's not a lie. Dan'yel doesn't ask any questions. I was sure, when I left that I knew my way to the gym. But before I was halfway there, I find myself well and truly lost. I know the word for "gym" though, and by repeating it to passersby and following their pointing fingers, I find my way before too long. Jack is already waiting for me.

He starts me off easy, with moves that are almost like the moves that I already used on my attacker. Then he tries to show me a move that would end with my attacker flipped onto the ground. Unfortunately I can't actually flip Jack.

I hear Sam's voice behind me.

I turn. She looks very different when she is out of the dark uniform she wears when she's working around the base. Today she is wearing the kind of clothes that Dan'yel puts on when he has a day off and isn't planning on going anywhere. When she's dressed like that I find I am unable to hate her, and am in fact viewing her as a potential of friend.

"Let me," she says to me.

I try the same move on her, but I can't flip her either the first time. My flaw was that I misjudged her strength. She may be smaller than Jack, but she isn't weaker. The second time though, she goes easier on me, and I work harder, and I get her on the ground. The two of them work together training me. I usually start the moves with Sam going easy, and end them with Oneel using a small portion of his strength. I'm surprised at how easy it is to flip a person larger and stronger than me.

After I finish training, I shower and head back to Dan'yel's lab. He looks worried when I came back in.

"Where were you?" he asks with concern.

"Sorry… I was…" I mutter.

"I'm sorry, you can go wherever you want. I knew you didn't want me to know where you were. But then you were gone a long time. And I started to worry about you. I just… someone tried to capture you yesterday!" he explains, pulling me into a hug.

"I'm sorry, husband," I say. I tried to keep the training from him, because I thought he would worry. But I can tell that he is worrying a lot more by my not telling him. "Oneel and Sam were teaching me to fight."

He pulls away and looks at me carefully for a long minute, "You're that scared?"

I shake my head. It's not really about fear. "I just think it is something I should know. I am the wife of an intergalactic traveler, and I am alien. I just think it would be better if I could defend myself."

"You think they'd take another student?" he asks.

I look at him, surprised.

"It's ok, we do just about everything together. I'd totally understand if you want this just for yourself."

"No, I want to do this with you. Just… I'm not sure why…"

"I want to be able to defend you. And my job does involve fighting a lot of aliens. For that reason alone, I should do this. But if you want to have separate training times …"

"I want to fight with you, husband," I say.

"Well, that does sound fun," he says.

***I'm going with DVD order of Stargate episodes because that's how I saw them. I'm not mentioning "Emancipation" because I could hardly imagine Sha'uri getting much information about that mission. I doubt Dan'yel would count anything in this mission as "life or planet altering". The mission described in "Broca Divide" would certainly count as "life or planet altering". However, it just wouldn't happen in this reality. At the beginning of the episode we are told that they are going to this planet, because the refugees from Chulak identified three of the gyphs from it. There are no refuges from Chulak right now in this AU. So the land of the light is just not happening at this point.**

****I don't know if she was at the SGC a year before the series started. But I also don't know for sure that she wasn't. So I am going say Janet Fraiser is here. Because let's be honest, we could all wish for another year of Janet!**

*****They are the police but she doesn't know that.**


	12. Suspicion of a future

Dan'yel has been working late nights, and he isn't telling me what it's about. I've decided to trust him. But he hasn't decided to trust me. I am also escorted anywhere that I go off the base by him, or Sam, or Jack, or some SF's (I now know the proper name for the military police). He won't let me go home alone either. Before the kidnapping, he would try to convince me to go home and "relax" (what is this "relax" that Americans are so fond of?). Now he wants me by his side while he works in his office, and leaves me with Ca'fin when he goes off base, as he often does.

I think he's trying to catch my would-be kidnapper. But it's going to be hard, because I don't have a whole lot of details about the attacker, and they spent the first crucial hours after the attack investigating my own husband. Maybe if I'd just spoken clearly on that day, they would have caught the kidnapper. I would have my freedom, and Dan'yel would be able to rest.

I've gotten pretty good at cooking, and I usually love to do it. But lately, I have decided that I hate eggs. "I forgot something," I mutter, leaving Dan'yel alone in the kitchen. I make it to the bathroom right before I puke into the toilet. A nice thing about earth is that it only takes a touch to flush the smell away. I want to sit there and recover for a minute or too, but I get up and brush my teeth right away. I don't want Dan'yel to know about this.

See, I've been throwing up a lot lately. And I'm a little bit late. I looked at the commentary for some barley and wheat seeds so I can find out if I'm going to have a baby. I don't know how it's possible. Dan'yel is always so careful about the prevention. I'm scared that he's going to think that I cheated on him. I'm scared that he's going to be angry at me. Resent me, resent the baby.

I walk out as soon as I can, and go back to stirring his eggs.

"You feeling alright? You look a little pale," he asks.

"Fine," I say with a smile. I'm going to have to tell him, but I'm not going to tell him now. Today he's going on a mission. I suppose I'll have to tell him when he gets back.

The phone rings in the middle of the night. No good calls come at this time. I grab the phone and hold it to my ear.

"Sha'uri?" a voice which I am almost sure is the doctor's asks.

"Yes," I say.

"Dan'yel is in the infirmary," then she says more words of which I only catch "injured" and "fine."

"I soon be," I mutter as I hang the phone up. I realize that I got the order of the words wrong about the time that I've reached the closet and started throwing clothes on. But I also think that it does not matter.

I run most of the way there. It's a little because I am still not comfortable walking in the dark, but it's mostly because I need to get to my husband as soon as I can.

I race into the infirmary and see my husband right away. "Dan'yel?" I question.

"Sha'uri, it's ok," he assures me, "Didn't they tell you I was ok? I'm perfectly fine."

"What happened?" I ask him.

He scoots over in the bed, and pats the spot next to him.

"Are you sure?" I ask.

He nods his head again, and I sit next to him.

"We were on the mission. Jack and I were front, Sam and Feretti were in the back. Jack and I fell into some sort of homemade hunting trap. It was a long fall, and we got a little bit banged up. But Sam and Feretti pulled us out, and got us home."

"Is Jack ok?" I ask.

He nods his head slowly, "He probably has a broken arm, but he's going to be alright."

"Did anyone call Sara?" I ask.

He nods.

"I should go see if he's alright, and give her a call," I say, knowing she's not allowed in the actual building.

He grabs onto my arm lightly, "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing," I say smiling.

But I can see that he's not buying it for a second. He knows there is something wrong, and his imagination might be making it worse than it is.

"I swear I didn't cheat on you," I mutter, diving my head into his shoulder. His body goes tense. He gently takes my chin in his hand, and tilts it upward.

"Why would I think you did?" he asks with a broken voice.

"I need barley seeds," I say, pulling away his grasp and burying my head in his shoulder again.

"I don't know what that means, babe," he says with a hand on my back, "Do you have a disease down there that barley would fix, or something?"

I pull back looking at him, completely puzzled, "Barely seeds tell you if you're going to have a baby," I remind him.

"Not on Earth they don't,"* he says, "But we have other ways of figuring this out. Why don't you think this is my baby?" he sounds wounded. Suddenly his eyes go wide, "Did you lie about what happened when they tried to kidnap you? Did he…"

"No!" I shake my head, "I swear husband, I have never been with anyone but you."

"So the baby's mine?" he asks hopefully.

"It has to be, but I don't…." I say, befuddled. "We always used the protection."

He laughs a little. It's nervous laughter, but I'm still annoyed by it. "Those things they… don't work all the time. Sometimes even when people are using them every time they still get pregnant. Besides there was the time in Jack's lake."

"But we were underwater," I say.

He flinches, "Apparently we need to talk a bit more about birth control. You can get pregnant even underwater. So you think we're having a baby?" he asks.

I nod, "Maybe?" Burying my face in his shoulder again.

"Hey, it's ok. It will be ok!" he says. His body isn't tense anymore.

"You didn't want to have a baby yet, and we're having a baby, and it's my fault."

"I think it's also my fault. More that it is yours, because I knew a bit more about Earth birth control than you did, and I'm not mad." I look up at his face, and I know that he is telling the truth. "I didn't want to have a baby right after we got married, but that was a while ago. We've got a house, and we have some money saved, and I know you enough to know that… we're going to be fine, Sha'uri. If we are having a baby, it's not going to bother me. In facy," a smile crosses his face, "I find myself hoping that we are going to have a baby."

"Really?" I ask.

"As long as you are sure that it's mine," he asks seriously.

"Positive," I assure him.

He puts a hand on my stomach.

A nurse walks in to talk to him. I jump away from the hospital bed, which is most certainly only meant for one person at a time. She smiles at me. From what she is saying I can tell that she is telling Dan'yel that he can leave.

The he asks for something which includes the word, "Wife."

The nurse grins at me, and leaves quickly.

I ask him for a vocabulary lesson on words that will no doubt be important to me in the next couple of months. Baby and pregnant and family.

"What's wrong?" he asks again.

"I can't speak English. The baby…"

"Will speak two languages, and will know two cultures. That's true whenever we have the baby. You are going to be an amazing mom," he assures me. He's so sure about it that I can't help but believe him.

The nurse returns, and draws my blood. She talks to Dan'yel a little bit, and then leaves. Dan'yel tells me that it will take a few hours to get the results. Dan'yel tells me that he's will be in his lab working. He leaves directions with the nurse to get both of us before she tells us the news.

I head into Jack's room in the infirmary.

"Is Dan'yel alright?" he asks, sitting up.

"Yes, they already released him. I came to see how you are doing," I say looking, at an arm which is wrapped.

"It's sprained, no big deal," he mutters.

"I'll go give Sara a call and let her in on the news."

"Thank you, I'd hate to have her worry."

As I leave his room, I debate walking to Dan'yel's room to use the talking machine. But by now I can dial the numbers of my friends without help, and I don't want Sara to have to wait a minute longer than she has to.

I turn to the nice doctor and ask to use her office. She nods her head.

Sara's voice sounds worried as she answers.

"Jack is fine," I assure her.

"Sha'uri? You've seen him?" she asks.

"Yes, his hand is hurt," I tell her not remembering the exact word that Jack used.

"Broken?" she asks.

"No," I say.

"Thank goodness, and Dan'yel is fine? The rest of the team?"

"They are all alright," I tell her.

"Your test results came back early, Mrs. Jackson," the nurse says breaking into the room, "Your husband is on the way."

"Ok," I say. The nurse leaves, and I am faced with a silent phone.

"Is everything ok, Sha'uri? Should I have been asking about your health?"

"I'm fine, it's just… I might be," I struggle to remember the word that Dan'yel told me not twenty minutes ago, "Having a family." I say the only one I remember.

"A baby? You're pregnant?" she asks, sounding excited. And hurt, because after all Sara's son died. Sara's only son. Despite all efforts to have more.

"I don't know… maybe," I say.

"That would be a good thing, right? I mean, you've talked about how you wanted a baby. Isn't Dan'yel ready?"

"No, he's excited, it's just… I feel like I won't be ready yet. I want to know more about America before we have children."

"Oh, Sha'uri, kids will take you as you are. And nine months is a long time to get ready," she says.

When I come out of the infirmary, Dan'yel is already waiting for me, perched on the edge of the exam table. I sit down next to him. He wraps an arm around my back.

"You're not pregnant," the nurse says.

"What?" Dan'yel asks in shock.

I repeat it in my own tongue, because I'm so numb that I really think he didn't understand the words.

He turns to me, "Were you sick? What was wrong? We should… figure out why you were sick."

"I was just a little nauseous," I mutter.

"She's sick. Why is she sick?" he demands.

The nurse says a work that I can't hear.

He sighs, "She says you have the flu. It will pass." When I first came to America, the doctor explained to me that I might get sick more often than other people. I don't have any immunities built up against their diseases. I don't totally understand what immunities are, but I gather it has something to do with the fact that when you get a disease you are less likely to get the disease again.

He looks really sad, and I find myself wishing I'd asked Sara for the test without ever telling Dan'yel. I grab onto his hand, and he squeezes tight. The nurse leaves us.

He looks at me, concerned, "You all right?" he asks.

"Fine, the nausea just came and went early in the morning."

"I meant emotionally," he says, touching my knee.

I start to cry. He takes me into his arms, rubbing my back. "I know, Sha'uri. I know. Let's make a baby."

"What?" I say, pulling up my head to look at him.

"Let's try to make a baby. Or stop trying not to have a baby. We're ready."

I start crying harder into his shoulder, "You want to stop using protection?"

He nods.

***Of course, in Ancient Egypt they did. Woman would pee on the seeds, and if they grew, you were pregnant. They were almost as accurate as the modern methods. Except the part that was supposed to predict the baby's gender, that part was nonsense.**


	13. Dangers of Cake

I have taken up the habit of greeting my husband's team at the gate when he comes through. I like to stop by his office and make sure everything is organized and ready for him to return, and then stand by the gate room as he walks through. This time he doesn't come through. Sam comes through alone.*

"Where is Dan'yel?" I ask with concern.

"He's fine, Sha'uri," Sam assures me. "The Colonel is… the Colonel is sick. We're going to figure this out."

"Sick? How sick?" I ask.

She bites her lip. Oh, this looks like it might be really bad.

"I have to tell Sara," I explain.

Sam flinches.

"He… was drugged," she explains.

"What? Is he ok?"

"He's… he was drugged, and there was a woman… he…"

"Cheated on Sara?" I ask.

Sam nods, "And now we think he has something that… would make him get old really fast."

"Get old fast?" I ask. I can't possibly be actually understanding what she's saying.

"Yeah, the people of this planet… It looks like they only live about a hundred days, and the Colonel seems to have contracted the same disease that they have."

"You are curing him?" I ask.

"We are certainly trying," she says.

I nod my head, and get more details from her as she makes her way to her lab. Then I begin to make my way to the top of the base. Once there, I call a taxi. This is a conversation that would be much better in person. Actually, no matter how this conversation is done, it is going to be very horrible.

I spend the whole ride there in a taxi trying to think of how to take the sting out of it. In which way to tell the bad news.

When Sara opens the door and sees me, her knees crumble beneath her. She's sobbing on the floor. I don't know quite what to do with that, but I figure I'd better at least join her on the floor.

"He's dead?" she asks.

"No, no… he's not dead."

"Shot?" she asks.

"No, he's sick."

"Is he at the Academy hospital?" she asks. That is usually where they send Jack when he's going to be in the infirmary for more than a couple of hours. That way his wife can visit him.

"No, he's… they haven't got him home. He's…"

"Where is he?"

I shake my head. I don't agree with the whole concept of "classified", but I'm certainly not going to blow their cover.

"I know you can't tell me exactly, but can you at least give me the corner of the world?"

I shake my head.

"Is it a dangerous part of the world?"

I shake my head, "Sam mentioned that the people are very friendly there." I flinch, the people are a little too friendly.

"What is it?" she asks.

"I think maybe I should let Jack tell you the rest of it."

"The rest of what?"

"There was a woman there… she gave your husband some cake. He didn't know that there was a drug in it."

Her eyes are fixed on me, waiting for me to continue. But I can't actually find the words to continue. Part of it might have to do with the language barrier, but most of it has to do with the message.

"What did she do to him?" Sara asks softly. And I know. I didn't have anything to worry about. She loves him. And she can forgive anything. She's going to be furious. But she's not going to be angry at him. She's going to be angry at the person who actually did this to him.

"Sam wasn't quite sure. But she did see both of them in bed without many clothes," I mutter.

"Why didn't his team stop them?" she demands.

That was a question that I hadn't thought to ask. I give her an apologetic shrug of my shoulders.

"Is he alright, emotionally? I mean… I've got to see him," she says, standing up.

"He's in quarantine," I say.

"So he's really sick?" she asks, her face falling.

I nod my head, "They're working on cure."

"What are his symptoms?" she asks.

"Classified," I mutter uncertainly.

"No," she says, shaking her head, "Honey, 'symptoms' mean what's wrong with him."

I have finished four of the CD's and don't often make simple mistakes with language anymore. I know what 'symptoms' means.

"You can't tell me what's wrong with my husband?" she asks, concerned.

"Look, if I tell you can you not ask me how or why or where?" I want to know.

She nods her head seriously, sitting up with her back against the wall.

"He has a disease that makes him get older."

She raises an eyebrow. I don't suppose it sounds that strange yet.

"Older, really fast. Like a year for every day."

She leans forward, and I see a 'how' forming on her lips. But true to her word she keeps the word inside of herself.

"All the people where they are… they live a hundred days. There are a lot of people working on curing this disease."

"I need to see my husband," she says firmly.

"It's not possible, Sara."

"Would I catch what he has?"

"Only if you…" I look away, "Had relations."

"Ok, we can avoid that, I want to see him."

"Sara… you can't go where he is."

She stares at me, "He's going to die, and I need to say goodbye. Just tell me where to buy the ticket to, Sha'uri."

"I can't."

"If it were Dan'yel, and I knew where he was I would do it for him."

"Planes don't go where he is," I blurt out, because I feel like owe her.

She stares at me, "Where exactly is he?"

I move closer, "You wouldn't believe me…"

"I've lived with Jack for a long time. I'd be surprised if I didn't believe you.'

"They travel to other planets."

She shakes her head, "They aren't gone that long."

"There is a device that makes travel to other planets immediate."

She looks at me.

"If I went to the base, could I talk to him? I have to tell him… I never told him that I forgave him for Charlie. And now I have more to forgive him for."

"Write him a note," I advise, "It's the best chance we have of getting you a private conversation with your husband. I'm pretty sure I could get Dan'yel to sneak him a note."

"Thank you," she murmurs. She fetches a paper and goes to the table to write. She writes for a great deal of time, and then hands me the note.

"Thank you, Sha'uri, for telling me what I shouldn't get to know."

Before Sam heads back through the gate I send her with an envelope. I tell her that it has a message for Dan'yel. That's true, but the message only tells him to give the larger note to Jack without reading it.

It's a few hours later before the rest of the team returns, still Jack-less. Dan'yel pulls me into an empty room shortly after he arrives.

First he gives me a soft and romantic kiss. Then he says, "You told Sara about the Stargate."

"I never said 'Stargate,'" I correct.

"Sha'uri, you have to be careful who you tell this too. Whoever you tell about the Stargate to could easily figure out you are an alien. If they know that you can be in danger. The people who tried to kidnap you, it was probably because you were an alien. Let's not try to expand the list of your enemies."

"Sara isn't going to kidnap me."

"It's the principal of the thing."

"If you were going to die, I'd want to know about how. Doesn't she deserve the same thing?"

"He's not going to…."

"Military wives have to deal with the possibility of our husband's death. We have to deal with this all the time."

"And we… if I dare to call myself 'military'… have to never think about death," he says, pushing a lock of hair beyond my ear.

"You just stay safe," I command.

"I will, but I have to go work on saving Jack."

"Ok," I say giving him another soft kiss on the cheek.

"I love you," he says, in my native tongue. We've almost abandoned it for English now that I speak it so well. I realize how much I missed my language.

He turns by the door, "And give this to Sara," he says, handing me a note. "He cried as he wrote it. I'm not sure if this is the kind of detail that you need to tell her or not."

"He forgave her."

"For?" he prompts.

"Charlie, and Macaria."**

He shakes his head, "One hell of a woman," he mutters.

"He was drugged, right?" I ask uncertainly.

Dan'yel nods his head.

"Then it wasn't his fault," I say firmly.

"Of course not, but…" Dan'yel says.

I look into my husband's eyes, "You know your parents' death wasn't your fault, right?"

He turns his face away.

"Dan'yel…" I say, grabbing onto his shoulder and trying to get him to turn to me.

"I was right there. If I could have just…"

"Dan'yel, I was there when Ra killed my mother and sister. If I had tried to save them, I would be dead now and so would they. Do you blame me?"

"No," he says, touching my face.

"You couldn't have saved your parents unless you had some sort of psychic powers, and probably not even then."

He smiles at me, that weak little smile he gives when he's considering an argument, but remaining unconvinced.

"Go and save Jack," I murmur.

Jack looks really old when he comes back. I'm glad I made the decision to tell Sara, because there is no way that we could have covered this up. When he left her house just a few days ago, he was her age. Now he looks like her father. Like her grandfather. What is life going to be like? I can hardly imagine what it will be like for her to go into public with her husband.

"Jack," I say with sympathy.

"He's not staying old," Sam says, laughing at my face.

"He's going to get young again? We've got to tell Sara!"

"Sara is not going to see me until I de-age," Jack objects.

"Don't worry sir, Daniel's been documenting the whole thing with pictures," Sam assures him with a grin.

Jack shoots my husband a rather intense glare. He grins back at him, "Scientific data, Jack."

"Scientific data that will be classified so that my wife will never see it, right?" he asks.

"I don't know, you look sort of distinguished as an old man," Sara's voice says. The whole room turns to her in shock.

She shrugs her shoulders, "Turns out that your husband almost dying of an alien robot virus constitutes an upgrade in security clearance."

"The general knows you're here, right?" Jack asks.

"He's the one who vouched me past the security checkpoints," she says, walking close to Jack. "Are you ok?"

He nods, not looking at her.

"Close one," she says, trying to catch his eyes.

He nods.

"I didn't want you to know, because my life is all close ones," he chokes out.

"I knew that before I knew all of the details," she says, giving him a slight smile, "I'd rather know."

"We need a picture of Sara with her old man husband," I say, because this is one mood that really needs to be lightened.

***The last chapter was based on a mission of my own imagination. This chapter is based on "A Brief Candle."**

****Kynthia was only 30 days old. Therefore, if they arrived on the planet a year earlier the planet would be populated by different people. So, I'm calling Jack's liaison in this story by another name. Granted it probably wouldn't have happened at all. But I had five pages of this story written before I realized that it might not have happened at all, and I didn't want to sacrifice all that work. What can I say, I'm lazy.**


	14. The Image of Jack

**This will be a rather brief Cold Lazarus story. So grab the Kleenex. It's going to be brief, because I've just tortured the whole Jack/Sara relationship quite a bit. But I feel like I need to touch on this, because the story would have gone very differently if Jack and Sara were not divorced in this story.**

"Sha'uri!" Sara says into the phone.

"Yes?" I ask.

"Jack is acting really strangely. I don't know what to make of it. He's acting like….acting like he doesn't know that Charlie's dead. And he's up right now in Charlie's bedroom crying. He never cries."

"This is a good thing right?" I ask, "You're always saying you wish he would deal with his grief."

"I know but…he's so unJacklike right now. I was just wondering. I know that even though I get to know about the intergalactic nature of my husband's job I don't always get to know the details. I know that you often get to know the details. So I guess I was just wondering if you knew of anything that would explain his strange behavior."

"Dan'yel always tells me when something important happens on a mission. He didn't mention anything important happening. Why don't you go ask Jack questions? Questions Jack would know the answer too, that way you can tell if it's him or not."

"That is a great idea Sha'uri, I'll let you know how it goes."

She calls back in an hour, "He doesn't know anything. He doesn't remember our lives together. I'm almost positive this isn't my husband."

This was not the answer I expected her to come back with. "I'll call Dan'yel…I'll get someone there to help you. Keep him there."

I call Dan'yel and explain the whole story to him.

"You did the right thing Sha'uri, we just had Jack come through the gate. The real Jack. We don't know what is going on, but we will get someone to Sara's house right away to figure out what is going on."

Its hours before Dan'yel comes home.

"So what was the thing at Sara's house?"

"A crystal energy based life form," he responds.

"What?" I ask.

"Exactly. There was a race…a whole civilization in this crystal form. And Jack touched one of them, and he took on the form of Jack. That creature went back to Sara's house. It…was trying to bring Charlie back to Jack so Jack wouldn't be in pain anymore. And in the end this crystal figure took on the shape of Charlie."

"That must have been traumatic for them," I say.

"It was, but I think in another way it was good for them as well. I think they really needed to talk about it. Jack isn't really a talker, and this forced him talk about is son."


	15. Pain of Grief

**Thor's Hammer and Bloodlines wouldn't have happened, because Teal'c is not yet with us (no worries, Teal'c will join the team). I've decided the Torment of Tantalus is not happening yet either, because Daniel is too busy with wife and house and learning hand-to-hand combat to look through old boxes. But honestly, aren't you glad the man is actually getting some hand-to-hand combat before season eight when Vala bets him up? I always wondered why one of his three very capable teammates didn't take him aside and give him some lessons during his first couple years at the SGC.**

**Kleenex warning on this one. But remember your canon. You should know some things about this episode (Fire and Water) that Sha'uri does not.**

When Sara, Anna, Marci, and Lainie all show up at my door, I think it's got to be some impromptu girl's day. Then I see their faces.

"No," I say.

"Sha'uri," Anna says, grabbing me by my waist, evidently expecting my knees to buckle like Sara's did when she thought I was delivering bad news.

"Not Dan'yel, they're wrong," I say, trying to break away from them, and go back into the house where I would be safe. Where this would never have happened.

"Jack was there… he saw it," Sara says.

Lainie has her arms out, and I let myself collapse into them, letting her pull me into a tight inclusive hug. I feel the other woman behind me holding me closer.

The next few hours are a complete blur. They gave me tea, and tried to convince me to eat something. I threw up at some point, from the grief of it.

Jack comes at some point, and he won't look at me.

"What happened?" I ask him.

"He died in the service of his country."

"What happened?!" I demand louder.

"Girls," Jack says. They all nod, and walk out of the room.

"This planet had a whole lot of volcanic activity. It just came out of holes in the ground. We weren't even that far away from him. It was just a second, and he was…" Jack is crying, and trying to hide the fact that he is crying.

I grab onto his hand. He looks at me. "I swear to God, I tried to get to him, but the heat was… It blasted right toward us."

"I don't blame you, Jack; I know you would have given anything to save him. I know you Jack, this wasn't your fault."

He is crying harder, and I give him a hug.

"Sha'uri, I swear to you… I'm going to make sure that you are ok. I'll take care of you… Daniel and I made a deal. If something ever happened to one of us..."

"I'm not a child. I don't need anyone to take care of me," I say, offended.

"Sha'uri," he says, "You're not a child. But you are a stranger in a strange land. You've learned English really fast, but there is still a lot that you don't know. There's a lot about this culture that you don't know yet…"

"Money," I say in shock.

He nods, "You're going to be fine, Sha'uri."

"No, I only work part time. And my job with Dan'yel is gone, and the house…" I say, starting to panic. I hadn't thought about the practical matters yet.

"Sha'uri," he says, touching my arm, "I told you I'm going to take care of you. And you'll get something from the Air Force. Maybe Dan'yel has life insurance. I'll look into it for you. I can help you get a job if you need it, and if you need money…"

"Maybe I should go back to Abydos," I mutter. But I know I can't, as soon as the words leave my mouth. If I have to live without Dan'yel I am certainly not going to live without Dan'yel's world. I'm feeling nauseous again, "How can I live without my Dan'yel?" I ask. Then I worry he might think that I am only thinking about practical matters so I add on, "I loved him so much. Without him…"

Jack is silent for a long time, "When Charlie died, I thought my life was over. But there is life after grief, Sha'uri. It's different, colder, plainer, and harder, but there will be good days again."

I look in his eyes, and find it hard to doubt him, even though it seemed so unbelievable.

They try to get me to eat, and eventually I drink some broth to pacify them. Sara stays with me that first night, in the room that Dan'yel set up with a bed just in case someone comes to visit (it's an American tradition).

I wake up, screaming and sobbing, in the middle of the night. Sara rushes in and holds me, rocking me back and forth. She doesn't say much to me, but I found myself very glad that I was not alone.

The next day, our house is swarmed by crowds of people. They all bring food, and say phrases which seem to have no meaning. It could have been because I was so numb. Or it could have been because I am still not familiar with the English language.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"He was a good man."

"He was a hero."

"How are you doing?"

"He's in a better place."

The last one puzzled me the most. When most of them had all left, after dark, I asked Sara what they meant by that.

"Some people believe that once sometimes dies they go to a place called heaven."

"This is an American belief?" I ask.

She nods.

"This heaven is a good place?" I press.

"Very nice," she assures me.

"Does Anna's god send people there?" I ask.

She nods. "Do you want to talk to her?"

"I hate gods," I mutter.

"This god is not like the one on your planet. He hasn't murdered anyone in thousands of years. People have killed in his name, but…"

"That doesn't sound any better," I mutter.

"Sha'uri, there is nothing wrong with clinging to faith in the face of tragedy. I'll get Anna."

A moment later, Anna is sitting next to me. For a long moment she doesn't speak. Then she says, "Sara says you want to know about heaven."

"I can't believe he's gone. I don't mean… People of America mean something different with these words than the individual words mean. But what I mean by them is this: If I try to imagine Dan'yel being gone, Dan'yel just… not existing, I can't do it. I can't make my mind form a picture of him being nothing. It doesn't make sense. That he was… a real person with a body and thoughts and feelings and… then all of a sudden he's nothing."

"It must be hard since there is no body," she says softly.

"It's not the body I'm mostly concerned about," I tell her. "When my mom died, people told me her spirit still lived on, moving in and out of her body. I don't believe that anymore. I haven't really believed that in almost a decade. But I haven't really thought about what I believe now. I know there isn't a spirit going in and out of some non-existent body. I know he isn't just floating around the universe in some sort of an invisible state. But I also can't… he can't just be gone."

"You believe in spirits?" she asks.

"I don't know," I say, "You are people of science, surely you have found souls if they exit."

She sighs, "Well, I don't think that souls are the sort of things you can see with science."

"Invisible, floating…" I begin.

"I personally think that souls are something that happens in our brain. A series of electrical impulses that make up all the thought and actions and dreams and hopes that make us unique and different."

"So when the brain stops making electricity…?" I ask.

"I believe that God takes the ideas, and dreams, and hopes to something else, somewhere else, where it keeps those things alive forever," she says.

"I like that," I say. "Your god is definitely nicer than ours was."

She fidgets.

"What?" I ask.

"No, I'm going to… leave it at that for now," she says.

"There is more."

"Not everyone gets to go to heaven," she whispers.

"What happens to the ones who don't?" I ask, a bit more frantically than I meant to.

"They go to hell," she whispers.

"But they still exist? They go on being?" I ask.

She nods.

"Then it doesn't matter to me where he is. He just needs to… go on being. And can I see him again?" I ask, "You know, after I die?"

"Yes," she says.

"Thank you, Anna. I don't know if I'll still believe it all in a year, but I needed this for now."

"My God is more than a crutch, Sha'uri, but I'm not about to deprive a widow of a crutch," she says, putting an arm around me. "I'm here for you, Sha'uri. I'm telling you that I will do anything to help you."

On the third day, they start planning a funeral. They want me to be part of it, but I know almost nothing about this Earth custom. I sit there as they talk about things, but I let my mind wander.

I think about the funeral rites on my own planet. I would be the speaker for my husband. I recite the words in my head. Then in my mind's eye I see them putting dirt on top of his body.

I rush out of the room, and throw up again. It's Lainie that follows me.

"Are you ok?" she asks.

"I probably caught an American virus. It's easy for me to do."

"You need to eat," she says.

"I really don't feel like eating anything," I say.

"Daniel loved you, he'd hate to think that you were suffering because of his death. He'd want you to take care of yourself."

I nod my head, "Just give me a little bit," I plead.

"Yeah, what do you want?" she asks.

"Anything but eggs."

When I wake up the next morning, there is a full twenty seconds where I've forgotten what happened. I reach over to feel Dan'yel in the bed next to me, forgetting that he wasn't there. Forgetting that he would never be there again.

I curl up around his pillow, desperate for the smell of him. It's only been a couple of days, but already it's almost gone. I cry until I run out of sobs. After that, I cry without tears until I can barely breathe. Until my stomach is aching from the effort of sobbing.

Then I get up and put on the black dress. Black dresses are supposed to represent how sad I am. There is no color in the world that can represent how sad I am.

They let Sara come to the funeral, since she knows about the SGC. But the rest of our friends are not allowed to be here. Sara stands on one side of me, and Anna's husband, Walter, stands on the other.

Soldiers walk to the front, carrying guns and the bit of colored fabric which represent their nation.

Jack moves to stand in front of all of us. As he talks, they fold a piece of the colored fabric into a small triangle, "Daniel Jackson… made this place… happen. As a member of SG-1… he was our voice, our conscience. He was a very courageous man. He was a good man. For those of us lucky enough to have known him, he was also a friend."

They deliver the triangle into my hands. Then they take leaves wrapped into a circle, and put it into the wormhole. It is suspended there for one second before it disappears.

Or at least, it looks like it disappears. I know that it really just went somewhere else. Somewhere else where I cannot reach. I hope the same can be said for my husband.

"We commend Daniel Jackson's spirit to the Universe he opened up for us," General Hammond says.

Command him to the Universe he opened for us. I like that. He still exists somewhere.

"I pledge to continue our journey of discovery in his memory. May he rest in peace."

After the funeral, we go to something called a wake. They tell me it's like a funeral except happier. We are celebrating Daniel's life. I'm don't really feel like celebrating.

When I get to Jack's house, he is in the middle of a story about the day that I met Dan'yel. About how I was a gift Dan'yel did not want. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing that I wanted to be reminded of right then.

I try to give him a weak smile. He leaves the woman that he was talking to come give me a huge hug, "Sha'uri," he says, "You want something to drink? Food. You probably need food first. When is the last time that you ate food?"

"I'm fine, Jack," I mutter.

"I told that Daniel I'd take care of you. You will not be starving to death on my watch." And then he traipses off to get me a plate of food.

Once I'm sitting down with the food, he goes to pour me an Earth vipie. He gets into a strange trancelike state as he is pouring the liquid into a glass. Then he suddenly turns and marches outside. I go to follow him. He is hitting small balls with a stick so they go into a piece of netting. He knocks over the net, and becomes furious. He begins bashing in the window of a car.

"Come get this damn car out of here!" he shouts in furry.

General Hammond walks over to him, "What's on your mind, Colonel?" he says, as casually as he can.

"Retirement, actually," he mutters, and I wonder what that word means.

"You don't mean that," he says.

Jack lets out a long sigh, "I think I do."

"Why don't you come join the others in the back?" he urges.

"Yes, sir," Jack says sounding quiet.

"You know that's my car, don't you?" General Hammond asks.

"You should get that window fixed," Jack says with the dry humor he uses whenever he's feeling vulnerable.

I take one sip of the Earth vipie, and suddenly become nauseous again. I make a break for the bathroom for what feels like the millionth time.

We were trying to have a baby together. It would be too cruel if I'm going to have one all my myself.

"Are you ok in there?" Thank goodness, it's Anna's voice. She's the one I need right now.

I open the door. "I should probably go to the infirmary."

"You're still sick, huh?" she asks in concern.

"I might be having a baby," I confess.

Her eyes show one moment of intense happiness. "That's a good thing, right?" she asks uncertainly.

I shrug.

"I mean, it's scary to be a single mom, but we'll all be here to help you, and it's like having a little piece of Daniel with you…" she begins.

"I don't want to think about this yet. I thought I was pregnant before. If I get attached to this little piece of Daniel and find there isn't a little piece of Daniel…"

"Ok, so we find out. I'll go and pick up a pregnancy test."

"You can do that? You can take my blood?" I ask.

"Ah… there is another test, just as accurate, that doesn't involve blood. Are you going to be ok if I go get the test?"

I nod my head, and turn back to the party. Soon, Anna returns with a bag. She takes me to the side, and explains the test to me. I feel extremely awkward taking this test in Jack and Sara's bathroom. But the party will be going on for another couple of hours, and I really do have to know now.

I hand the test to Anna, so she can interpret it.

She looks up at me and smiles, "You're having a baby, Sha'uri."

I am so happy, and so scared that I don't quite know what to do with my face or with my body. Anna holds me until I get calm.

"I really have to go and eat some healthy food now," I mutter.

"Good luck at this party. I think Jack soaked all the food in beer."

"Well, that's ok, I like your country's vipie."

She stares at me, open mouthed, for a little bit, "You cannot have beer, sweetie. Not when you're pregnant."

"Why?"

"It's not good for the baby."

"The people on my… in my country, they all drink vipie when they are carrying their children. Our vipie is weaker than yours, but…"

She bites her lip, "Look, I don't want to tell you what to do. You are a grown woman. But it really is dangerous to drink beer or wine or anything like that when you're having a baby."

"You'll teach me to be an earth mother?" I ask, putting a hand on my stomach.

"Yes. I'll help you any way you need. But I've seen you with my son, honey, and you're going to be an exceptional mother."

As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I try really hard to take care of myself. I try to get enough sleep, even though I keep being woken up by nightmares. I try really hard to eat enough food, even though my stomach tries to reject any food I put into it. But that is all I can manage. Besides that, I mostly stay in bed.

Jack comes one day and figures out my finances. It turns out that Dan'yel did buy the thing called life insurance. Between that and the money the Air Force gave us, I have enough money to get by for a few months. I'm hoping that by that time I'll be willing to get up and work again. Right now I can't seem to care.

Anna is the only one who knows about the baby. She came a few days after the funeral and sat on the edge of the bed. She sat there silently, until at last I rolled over and asked her what she wanted.

"Today, you are going to get out of bed," she announces with absolute confidence.

"No," I tell her.

"Sha'uri, you have a baby to think of!"

"I take care of the baby! I eat, I sleep," I defend myself.

"Honey, did you know that people can miscarry from being depressed?" she asks.

I turn to her, "What do 'miscarry' and 'depressed' mean?"

"'Miscarry' means the baby dies, and 'depressed' means you are very sad," she explains.

I sit up in bed, "How can I not be sad?"

"Mostly you have to just smile. If you act happy, you will get happier. But I thought that today we could do something to cheer you up."

"Nothing is going to make this better."

"I know, but I thought if we did something to focus on the baby, that would probably help. I thought we could go baby shopping."

"It will be months before the baby needs anything," I remind her.

"But maybe if you get the things… You know, the crib where your baby will sleep, the table you will change it on… Maybe the baby will seem more real to you. Maybe it will give you something to look forward to."

"We can try it," I say.

"Great! Now, do you want to bring Tyler? Walter has the day off, so he can watch him, or we can bring him. Your choice."

"Bring your son," I tell her.

"Ok, you get dressed, and I'll be back to pick you up soon!" she says cheerfully.

As I slip into the shower, I feel better than I have since Dan'yel died. I decide to talk to my baby, "Sweetie, Mommy is going to be happy. Just for you. Because I'm not going to lose you too. No, sweetie, you're going to be born, and then I can tell you all about the wonderful man that your father was. You and I, baby. We're going to have a whole lot of fun. We're going to be ok."

I am still eating my breakfast when Anna returns with Tyler in tow.

"How can you get him ready so quickly?" I ask. "When I babysit, it takes me forever to get him fed, and changed for bed."

"It's something that comes from doing it often. Soon you will have super mom powers, too," she jokes.

"Hey, Tyler," I greet him.

He opens up his little baby arms wide, and toddles toward me. He falls a few steps before he reaches me, and I catch him before he hits the ground.

"Aren't you lucky, getting to spend the day with your Mommy AND your favorite babysitter?" Anna says.

We go to the mall. I haven't been to the mall since my first day on Earth with Dan'yel. There is a shop in the mall that has nothing but baby outfits.

"Well, hello!" the person who works at the store greets us. "Does this little guy need some new clothes?" she asks, tickling Tyler's belly.

He buries his face in his mother's shoulder.

"Actually my friend here just found out she is going to have a baby," Anna says, smiling.

"Congratulations!" the woman exclaims, "So what are we looking for today? Maternity clothes? Or are we getting ready for the baby early?"

"I'm sorry, I am new to this country, and your language. What are maternity clothes?"

"When you get a little bigger, you're going to need bigger clothes. They call them maternity clothes," Anna says.

"Not today," I say. I didn't really want to think about being fat right now, "I want to find a… place for the baby to sleep. What is the word?"

"Crib," Anna says.

"Right over here," the woman instructs us. The saleslady keeps trying to describe features of the various baby things. Anna keeps having to describe them in simpler words. Sometimes she even delves into Abydonian, because I have taught her a few of the words. We fill up the whole back of her vehicle (something called an SUV).

Anna won't let me lift anything. She says it is not good for the baby. After we finish shopping, she stops by another store. There is a wall of little pieces of paper all showing different colors. She tells me to pick out the color I want my baby's room to be.

"Is the room not ok, in my house?" I ask.

"its fine, but usually baby's rooms have a bit more color," she explains.

Tyler's room is bright green. I should have thought of it myself. She explains the meaning of certain colors. That pink and purple are for girls. That blue is for boys. I choose red. A bright, vibrant red.

"You shouldn't be around paint fumes, either. Walter could come over and paint it, and you can spend the night at our house in the guest room. By the next day, it should be good," she tells me.

That night, Anna introduces me to the tradition of "sleepover". We eat popcorn and watch movies. We giggle and play a "board game." I'm not happy, but I try, and I get close. We're just about to go to bed when suddenly the door bursts open.

There, standing next to Walter, is Dan'yel. It can't be. Dan'yel is dead. Oh.

"He's a crystal version of himself. He's not real," I say.

"I'm real," he says, reaching out his hands to me.

"No, Walter, call the SGC, and find out what is going on," I say, getting up and moving across the room.

Walter nods, and moves toward the phone.

"Please Sha'uri," Dan'yel pleads. "I've been in hell for the last couple of days. Then I get home, and find out that they thought I was dead. That you had a funeral for me! And I go home, and you aren't there! If I were a little later, Walter would have been gone too! I thought you went back to Abydos! I thought you didn't want to stay on… in America. And he tells me he's just doing some work for you, and that you're staying at his house. And I get here and…"

"Jack watched you die," I say slowly.

"No, he… thought he watched me die."

"You're not even hurt. He told me you were on fire. You're not burnt."

Walter comes back into the room, "I have Colonel O'Neil on the phone on the phone for you, Sha'uri."

I take the phone, still positioning myself far away from my… maybe husband.

"Jack?" I ask.

"Sha'uri, I'm so sorry. We thought Dan'yel was going to the bathroom, and he just left. I told Dan'yel to wait for me. Why are you at the Harriman's?"

"Jack, you told me my husband died. You told me that you saw my husband die."

"I know. I'm so sorry. I… We all had a false memory put into our mind. We all really believed that Daniel was dead. We started to suspect that he was all right, but I didn't tell you. I couldn't tell you until I was sure."

"This is real. He's Dan'yel. You are 100% sure this time?" I ask.

"I'm positive."

I drop the phone and wrap my arms around him.

"Sha'uri," he says, "Its ok."

"You're all right? Where have you been? You said it was like hell?" I didn't actually know what hell was like, but I could guess it was bad.

"Oh, Sha'uri, it wasn't that bad. I was just worried about if I'd ever be able to get back to you."

"What happened?" I ask.

"I'll tell you the whole story, but first we should get home."

"I can't go home tonight," I say.

"What?" he asks, examining my face. This wasn't how I expected to tell him we were having a baby.

"No, it's fine, it's been hours. Go home with your husband," Anna says.

"I finished all the work," Walter adds, with a smile.

"I can't thank you guys enough," I say.

"Yeah, thanks for looking after my wife, when I was, uh… dead," he mumbles to them.

We open the door, and walk out into the cold night air.

"Why couldn't you go home?" he asks.

"Home was just different… different without you," I lie, with a piece of the truth.

"I know, I can't imagine what that was like. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose you. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. The whole time I was gone, I was trying to get home to you."

"What happened?" I ask, looking at him seriously.

"Nothing," he mutters.

"Dan'yel," I say, grabbing his hand.

"Ok, so an alien captured me, and gave the rest of SG-1 false memories. And he wanted to know what happened to his wife that lived a long time ago on Earth. He wouldn't let me go until I told him. And I didn't know. Finally we figured out a way to get the information out of my head, but it hurt a lot to do it. But I did it to get back to you."

I look at him with panic, and try to start asking a question.

"It hurt a lot, but there was no damage," he assures me.

"Janet checked you?" I ask.

"Yeah, are you ok, I'm sure you had an even rougher couple of days than me?"

"Just don't make a habit of dying," I caution him.

"Honestly, I am so sorry," he says.

"It wasn't your fault."

By now I've reached our own house. "What was Walter doing, anyway?" he asks.

"Ah…" I hedge.

He gets a strange look on his face. He starts to open the door to his study.

"Dan'yel!" I try to stop him. He doesn't have a study anymore. Maybe he'll be angry at me for changing everything around. After all, we don't actually need a room for the baby for months yet.

He opens the door, while giving me a blank look. He turns his eyes to the room, and a smile crosses his face, "Sha'uri, this looks like a nursery."

"I don't know what a nursery is," I admit.

"A nursery is a baby's room," he says, grinning a little bit bigger.

"Ok, so then it is a nursery," I say.

"Sha'uri, are we having a baby?"

I nod my head.

"Yes!" he exclaims, picking me up and practically tossing me in the air.

"Hey, Walter put the furniture together as well as painting," I say.

"You got stuff for the baby already," he says with a grin.

"Yeah, well I know how you like furniture," I tease.

"Sha'uri, it's good that you started early."

"I needed to be happy, for the baby. I couldn't be happy without you, but this helped…"

He sits down in the rocking chair, and pulls me onto his lap.

"This is for rocking babies to sleep," I tell him.

"That's what I'm doing," he says with a laugh, putting a hand on my belly.

"I love you, Dan'yel," I tell him.

"I love you, too, Sha'uri," he assures me.


	16. Knap of the Kid

I wake up the next morning, and reach for Dan'yel. He's not there. It was all a dream. Damn my subconscious. He's still dead. I grab his pillow, and pull it close to me. It smells like him. It hasn't smelled like him in a couple of days. I sob into the pillow.

"Whoa! What happened?" Dan'yel's voice says.

I turn, "Dan'yel?" I ask in surprise.

"Yeah, what happened?" he says getting into bed, and hugging me.

"I thought you were dead again," I try to explain.

"I'm so sorry. I just went to the bathroom. I never thought that you would wake up right when I was gone."

I cling to him, "Don't leave me," I plead.

"Hey, I'm right here. Right here." He holds me until I calm down. Then he puts a hand on my belly. "Morning baby, this is your daddy speaking." Then he looks seriously at my face, "You thought you were going to raise this baby all by yourself."

I shake my head.

"Replaced me already?" he says with a laugh.

"We've got really good friends," I explain.

"Yeah, Walter and Anna seemed to be going out of their way for you."

"Jack was telling me about a promise you guys made each other. He got all the financial stuff in line. You had me taken care of," I say gratefully.

"Well, you have a job like mine…" he starts.

"Do you have to work today?"

"No, I got quite a bit of time off. I'm going to have to make some calls today. Make myself un-dead as it were. But after that is done I thought we could take a trip to Abydos."

I smile at him.

"I mean, we were supposed to go there frequently. That was kind of the deal when we got married, when I took you away from your homeland. Yet we haven't been there for most of our marriage."

"You didn't have a work reason to return after we got the cartouche figured out."

"That shouldn't matter. You're probably missing your family. I should have gone back before. I'm sorry."

"You're my family," I tell him.

He sits up, "Sha'uri, I don't have a family anymore. You do. I want our kid to have someone besides just the two of us. And I wouldn't mind having your family either."

"You can share my family," I say with a smile, "When are we leaving?"

"The day after tomorrow. Have you been to the doctor?"

"I'm not sick," I tell him startled by the quick change in conversation.

"I know, have you gone to the doctor for the baby?"

"What do you think is wrong with the baby?" I ask concerned.

He smiles at me, "Don't worry honey. On earth woman go to the doctor before they have a baby. It's just to make sure that everything is alright."

"I didn't know," I say looking down.

He smiles, and lifts my head up, "It's ok, you couldn't have known for long…"

"Two days," I supply.

"So it's plenty early, but we should try to get you an appointment before we go to Abydos. I suppose we should go to Janet since you're not from this planet, and we'll need to know if gate travel will affect your pregnancy."

"Ok, you'll come with me?" I ask uncertainly. I haven't been to the doctor by myself yet. Ever since I came to Earth I've been trying to get more independent. But after being faced with real and absolute independence I'm willing to slow down being independent.

"Yeah, sort of a father's privilege. I wouldn't miss it for anything."

Dan'yel is busy with phone calls and such things. I open the door to get the mail. Hands grab me.

This time it isn't one unprepared man grabbing me. There are hands everyone. At least three on each leg, and as many on my arms. I bite the one over my mouth and let out an unholy scream.

That was stupid. Dan'yel is a worse fighter than me. Now they are going to hurt him.

But they throw me into a van before Dan'yel reaches us. They go about tying me up, but they steer clear of my mouth. The one I bite is being quite a baby about it. Shaking his hand as if I gave him some grievous injury.

"Please, I'm having a baby, so don't hurt me," I say.

"Aliens can have babies with humans?" one of them asks.

"Gross!" another exclaims.

"Maybe she just reproduced by herself," one says glinting his eyes at him.

"The baby is my husbands," I say firmly.

"Shut her up," one of them says.

They put a piece of cloth in my mouth. It tastes awful. But I work it around in my mouth bawling it up as small as I can. Then I press it against my top teeth leaving most of my mouth free.

One of them men glares at me, "I hope all the aliens don't fight like her. Or those bastards are going to be hard to beat."

"My people are peaceful, they would never hurt you," I mumble through the cloth.

"Can't you tie a proper gag," one of them says shoving the other one near.

"We should just use the sedative," the first one says.

"No way, that baby is probably worth twice as much as she is. Sedatives could hurt the baby."

"No," I plead, but it's so muffled even that simple word doesn't get out.

"Ah…nobody's going want to keep her long enough for the kid to come around. She's skinny yet."

"She could be lying about the whole thing," another says.

"Stop talking to the kidnap victim. Geez have none of you watched TV? That is how the kidnappers get caught," the driver mutters from the front seat.

"This isn't a tv show," one of my backseat buddies asks.

"Just be quite or I'll write a report on your incompetence's."

They don't say anymore. I examine each of their faces, and also analyze every words that was said. One of them threatened to write the other one up. This didn't sound like a criminal organization. It sounded more like this mysterious "government" that Dan'yel workes for.

I try to keep a mental calculation of how long we've been driving. I think it was less than an hour when the van stops, and the side door opens up.

"Why isn't she sedated?" a man in a white coat (like a doctor, like a doctor) demands.

"She's pregnant," one of them backseats boy's protests.

"At least she says she pregnant," the driver says suspiciously.

"We weren't sure if the sedative was safe for…" one of my kidnappers says.

The doctor was frozen in shock for a second but his words unfroze him, "You did the right thing. That sedative is not approved for pregnant woman."

I lock eyes with the doctor. I can already tell he's my best shot of getting out of here. He's more human than the rest. And he's panicked by the fact that I'm carrying a baby. By the fact that I'm a female. He views me as a person, not as an alien. I can use that.

He looks away from my direct eye contact.

"We'll bring her into your lab, and tie her down for you," the driver says.

I move the fabric as far away as I can, and mutter, "I'd rather walk myself if you please."

"Watch her she's tricky," the driver warns.

This would not be the time to escape. There are a lot of people over me, and they are far too much on guard.

I make sure to look around me as we get out. We are in a city to be sure, but I can't tell anything else. They take me into a building that reminds me more of the SGC than any other building I've seen on Earth. It's cold and industrial. The concrete walls are gray.

Every door contains signs full of acronyms. That confirms it, this place is definitely governmental. Dan'yel's government took me? I thought his government gave me permission to be here. I don't understand this.

Branches of government. No. But parts of the government. Dan'yel tried to tell me. It was all letters. I need to figure out what letters these guys are. But the doors have so many letters that I can't figure it out.

"Who are you?" I ask the one walking closest to me.

He looks at me. But doesn't say a word.

"Why are you doing this?" I ask the one on the other side of me.

He doesn't even turn to me.

"You're right about me being an alien, but I'm also a human. I don't know what kind of experiments you are planning, but…"

"Apparently, you guys need some lessons on how to make a gag," the driver says turning around. He makes undoes, and redoes the cloth around my mouth so tight that it cuts into my cheek. It causes a gag reflex to occur, and I almost throw up.

Two of my captors look at me with sympathy. I don't particularly like being choked, but if it gets me sympathy, I'll take it. Sympathy is a valuable thing when you are a captive.

They lay me down on a hospital bed, just like the ones in the infirmary. But this one has straps for tying my arms down, the straps are leather, and have strange buckles. As they try to tighten them I wiggle as much as I can. They can't get the bindings tight. But tight enough that I can't slip out. Then all of them leave except for one of the backseat boys and the doctor.

The doctor lifts up my head and unties the gag.

He looks at the man by the door, but the man doesn't say a word.

"I didn't sign up to hurt her," the doctor says.

The guy by the door snorts in derision.

"I wasn't told to hurt her," the doctor protests.

"Just do your job, and worry about the morals later," door guy advices.

"I'm going to take your blood," the doctor says.

"You don't need to tell her what's going on," the guy by the door says with an eye roll.

"You want to see if I'm having a baby," I tell the doctor.

"We also want to analyze your DNA," the doctor explains.

"Maybe I should put the gag on you," the door guy says to the doctor.

"What are your names?" I ask.

That clams them up. Bad question.

He takes my blood, and starts running it through a machine.

"My husband was very excited when I told him that we were going to have a baby. He doesn't have any family but the baby, and I," I say to the room. The doctor looks at me. "You married?" I ask.

He looks away without answering, but it's as good as a yes.

"You aren't going to hurt my baby are you?" I ask.

"No, we would never..."

"Shut up!" the man at the door says.

"I'm Catholic*; I won't so much as pretend to hurt that baby, and she might as well know it!" the doctor snarls.

"Why did get stuck dealing with the temperamental doctor?" the man at the door grumbles.

"What is Catholic?" I ask gathering that whatever it is its very important to them man before me.

"A religion," he mutters.

"I like your gods better than the gods of my home world," I tell him with a smile.

"Well I should think so!" he exclaims. "But my world only has one God. Well, that's not true, I suppose. But a lot of people, me included, they just believe in one God."

"And he forbids you from harming babies?" I ask.

"See, I believe that life begins at conception," he explains.

"What is conception?" I ask.

His face turns beat red, "It's the….the…"

"The moment you make a baby!" the man at the door replies.

The doctor turns to him looking grateful. If the truth is told I think the doctor was half expecting something far less couth to come out of the man's mouth.

"So, you think that unborn babies are important?" I ask.

"Yes! Of course! They are human life! Made in the image of God!" he says with more fever and ardor that I'd ever heard someone proclaim a belief. **

"When do they stop being important?" I ask.

"What?" he says.

"You didn't seem to have a problem hurting me until you found out I was having a baby. At one age do babies stop being important?"

The door guy snorts. The doctor looks flabbergasted.

"When they're born?" I suggest.

He shakes his head.

"Then when you know they are female?" I ask. I hope this is going to piss him off.

"Of course not! All human life is made in the image of God!" he repeats. That was definitely something that was drilled into him. I can use that.

"So your God is a fairy?"*** I ask. I'm not actually sure what that word means. But I think it's appropriate, because the soldiers use it as an insult to one another whenever they do something that females of the planet normally do.

I have not only offended the doctor now, but the door man as well. Apparently even people who don't practice this Earth faith have some emotional ties to it.

"If both male and female are made in the image of God…" I supply.

"She's got you there, God is clearly a trannie," the door man says laughing.

"You shouldn't talk like that," the doctor says reproachfully, "neither of you."

"Then why was it ok, to hurt me but not my baby?" I ask.

"It's not ok to hurt either of you, and I never meant to hurt you…" the doctor says.

"Nope, just take her blood, and run some experiments, and use her as a human lab rat," the door man says sarcastically.

"She wasn't going to be a lab rat," the man protests, "and it's better than what you did to her."

"Hey, at least I am honest. I know what I man. I'm a kidnapper. A criminal. A lowlife. I don't go home to my wife and kids at the end of the night and act all innocent like I never heart a fly."

So the doctor has kids. And the doctor and the door man hate one another. And the doctor needs to feel like he's a good person. All useful. And I learn more when I get them talking to one another. Noted.

I sit up as much as I can. A few inches, and look the doorman right in the eye. "An honest man, good," I say knowing the doctor is going to hate that I'm referring to the doorman as the moral one, "can you please call my husband and let him know that I'm all right? I just want him to know that I'm alright."

"I ain't that stupid woman," he says sneering at me. "Listen," he says to the doctor. "I'm going to go take my smoke break. Do you think you can handle a little sliver of a woman for a few minutes?"

The doctor nods.

"You know what will happen to that little family of yours if she gets away on your watch don't you?" the door man says.

Well, that little comment ruins a lot of my plans. And it was probably meant to. He probably knew that a comment like that would remove all of my attempts to run away. No one is going to die on my behalf. It also gives me great insight into the doctor.

"Give me your number," he says as soon as the other man is out of the room.

"I don't want you to take any risk. If something were to happen to your family, because of me…" I stammer.

"I won't do it until I get home. And it isn't going to help you anyway. I won't tell him anything….where you are or anything. Just that you're ok. He deserves that."

I nod my head. I'm grateful that this man doesn't know about tracking phone calls. I'm not sure how he doesn't know. But I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I recite for him the number.

"I really am not going to hurt you. And it's better for you that it's me doing it. Better than a brute like him." This was clearly a justification that he's given himself many times. It was probably the only way that he could get himself up in the morning and doing what he did.

"But brutes like that might not know how to do what you know how to do. Maybe if you weren't there to do it, no one would do it at all," I point out.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to stand by and do nothing," he mutters. When I first came to Earth I would have thought those fine words were of his own making. Now I know that they are said in a timbre which indicates that they are a quote from some great person possibly long dead. Some person that the quoter has never met. It is one of the layers of richness which is added to a society when it is possible to write one's words down.

The doorman comes back in. I pretend to relax and close my eyes.

"Woman, they can sleep anywhere," the doorman mutters. The doctor gives a light tap on my shoulder. So slight that I could have easily missed it, but I didn't. And I knew that it meant he didn't agree with the man's words even though he couldn't manage a protest.

Come on Dan'yel, rescue any moment now. Ok, think about what Jack and Sam told you. There has got to be a way out of here.

There is a banging at the door. This could be my opportunity. I've been here for almost a day, and I haven't seen one yet. They go with me into the bathroom, standing outside of the stall. They feed me not allowing me to use my hands. Sometimes I have one guard besides the doctor, sometimes up to three. There were two of them yesterday after the doctor went home. Now the doctor is back, and we're down to one. A different snide airman from yesterday.

The door opens, and all I see an elbow making contact with the doorman's head. I know that move, and I know who taught me that move.

"Jack, don't hurt the doctor!" I demand.

"He the one that called Daniel?" Jack asks. He's already tied up the guy on the floor.

"You actually called?" I ask.

The doctor nods looking terrified.

"Jack, they were going to hurt his family if they find out that he helped us," I say.

"Shit, what's your address?" Jack asks looking at the doctor.

The doctor looks at me.

"It's ok, he'll protect them," I assure the doctor.

"Untie her, and give me the address, we've got to move on this," Jack's commanding voice startles the doctor into action. The doctor starts to undo the straps as the rattles off an address. Jack talks into his radio. It's got too many acronyms in it for me to understand.

"Is Dan'yel ok?" I ask when he's off the walkie-talkie.

"Of course, Sha'uri, you were the one that was captured," he reminds me.

"I thought my scream might have made him come out and get captured," I explain.

"We've got to move," Jack instructs the doctor and I, after I am are freed. He goes out cautiously checking the hallway before motioning me forward.

"Your scream meant Daniel witnessed your kidnapping, and that combined with his," he indicates the doctor with his head, "phone call is how we found you so fast. You did good Sha'uri," he says making a brief bit of eye contact with me.

"I still got captured," he says.

"Nine guys, they could take me down to," he assures me.

"Doubtful," I mutter.

He has us around a pretty safe corner, "Daniel told us about a baby. Is the baby ok?" he asks looking me right in the eye.

"I….think so," I mutter.

"She's fine," the doctor assures him.

A look of relief crosses Jack's face that is undesirable. I think he might have been even more worried than I was, which is amazing, because I was pretty worried.

"Somebody tell Daniel that the baby is alright," he says into the walkie-talkie.

"Come on," Jack instructs us. Within a few minutes we get to the surface. There are lots of men in uniforms. I can't remember whether they are policemen or soldiers. They are milling around and putting the bad guys in handcuffs. I do look to make sure they have everyone I saw. They do. I look around.

"Where is Dan'yel?" I ask. It was bad enough that Dan'yel wasn't part of the rescue team. But he didn't even wait outside of the building?

Jack smiles at me, "You think I could get the husband of yours to sit this one out? No, he's down there. He should be coming up soon, because I told them we had you…"

"Sha'uri!" I hear a shout.

"Dan'yel, it's ok," I assure him.

He embraces me in a tight hug, kissing whatever flesh gets close to his lips. "Are you ok?" he asks. "You ok?"

"Yes, fine, they did some blood tests, something called an amniocentesis, and a few other things. On the hole it was no worse than a doctor's appointment."

"An amniocentesis? That test is risky," he says suddenly panicked, "Sha'uri, Jack said the baby was fine.

"Risky!" I say turning to the doctor, "You told me you wouldn't hurt my baby!"

"I didn't!" he says, "If there were complications we would have seen it…"

"You mean if you were going to kill my baby it would be dead, right? You lied to me, and you put my baby at risk. Made in the image of God my ass!" I scream. "Jack!" Jack walks over looking concerned, "I don't care about the threat to his family, but cuffs on this man."

"No, Sha'uri," Dan'yel says touching my arm. "No, it's not that dangerous. Doctors do it all the time."

"When there are known risk facts. Not because some idiot wants a DNA profile to satisfy his sick curiosity," the doctor says, "I have no excuse."

"You sure as hell did. If someone was threatening Sara I would do anything to protect her. Throw a kid into the mix, and…"

"Bull shit, Jack, you would never put a baby at risk. Ever. You would find a way. You would have faked the test or something," I say.

"You are fine. The baby is fine. Let's just cool off," Jack says separating me from the doctor. Jack is a good soldier. Too good sometimes.

Dan'yel take me into his arms, "Let's get back to the SGC. I want to get you into the infirmary."

"I'm fine, Dan'yel," I assure him.

"I want to hear that from Janet," he says with worry still in his eyes.

And suddenly I know I need to hear that about my baby as well. I nod my head.

Sam comes up with another team. She stands in front of Jack.

"We swept the place. We got 'em," he says.

"Thank you Sir, and Sha'uri?" Sam asks looking at me.

"I think I'm fine, but these men just don't quite believe me," I tell her.

Sam smiles at me, "Congratulations, Sha'uri," she says with a glance at my stomach.

"Thank you," I mutter bashfully. I know that on Earth they are pretty open about such things. But on Abydos things like this just aren't mentioned.

"Yes, Sha'uri, welcome to parenthood. You won't get to sleep for eighteen years," Jack says pulling me into a hug.

"Oh come on," the doctor says, "Parenthood is the best thing in the world. You know you wouldn't trade it to anything."

"No, I wouldn't," Jack says walking away from him.

Dan'yel clearly wants to follow Jack, and also feels the need to stay by my side. Sam settles it by following after Jack.

"Let's go," Dan'yel says. He doesn't have the commanding voice that Jack does. But I would follow him anywhere.

"What is a fairy?" I ask as we begin to walk away.

"It's a small creature with wings, but actually… it you go back to the original mythology they are a much more noble creature…"

"Why do the Airman tease each other with this word?" I interrupt. I could tell that this is going to be a long explanation.

"Ah…it's another word for homosexuals-men who ah…love other men."

"Why is it offensive to call their God this?" I ask.

He stops, and I have to take a step back to join them. "Where do I even begin?"

***I hope my comments won't offend any Catholics out there. When I, a bit later, poke a hole in his argument it's an argument used by many people of many faiths. I am not Catholic myself, but I live in a town that is almost exclusively Catholic, and what I say would go for other kinds of Christians as well. It's just that Catholics are the most likely to say "I'm Catholic" instead of "I'm Christian." And I just happened to know that his character was, and that this would be his response to things. I know it sounds kind of voice-in-my-head-crazy. But a lot of writers talk about their characters as such. Said doctor could not be any other religion.**

****I can't imagine the people of her home world getting too excited about their false gods. And she hasn't really experienced a lot of Earth zealots yet. Although, we have a lot those-both political and religious.**

*****Again not meant to be offensive. I have nothing against homosexuals. And Sha'uri wouldn't have made such an irrelevant comment about God if she had any understanding of the term "fairy" or the Earth deity. And C.S. Lewis said God had androgynous characteristics so the comment isn't that far out there, not really. It just sounds irrelevant in our culture.**

**Note: I hated to do the whole kidnapping thing to Sha'uri. I just realized that all SGC kidnap victims are female. (If you don't count woman messing with Daniels brain to make him stay with them). I mean we've got Sam (who it took six "ninjas" to get into that van, and who rescued herself multiple times), Vala (who was drugged) and an anonymous Air woman at the beginning of the series. No one tried to kidnap Teal'c even though he's an alien. (Seriously, who would think of trying to kidnap Teal'c?) But I just can't imagine the NID NOT making a second attempt on Sha're. So there it is.**


	17. Return to Home

Abydos doesn't feel like home anymore. I'm not sure when that happened. It's been so long since I was back. When I get to the mine, Skaara comes, running and yelling.

"Sister!" he exclaims.

"Brother," I say in English first, and then I correct myself and say it again in Abydonian.

"Forgetting your native tongue, already?" he teases.

"I've got a native tongue word for you - uncle," Dan'yel says.

Skaara looks at Dan'yel, trying to figure out why he's getting a language lesson.

"Dan'yel, we don't… announce these things here," I mutter, blushing.

"I'm an uncle?" Skaara says, grinning.

I nod.

"You'd better start making more frequent trips here. Will the baby be able to understand me? Will he speak our language? Are you going to teach it to read? What will it wear?"

"Ok, this is pretty new for us. We haven't really… worked on an answer to most of those questions. But she is going to speak Abydonian," I say.

"You always call her she," Daniel asks, "You do know that there is a fifty percent chance that it is a boy?"

"Yeah, a habit I picked up from the scientist," I explain, hoping my brother isn't feeling too lost considering that we're using a lot of English words.

"Hold it, the scientist called our baby a girl?" he asks.

I nod.

"We're actually having a girl, the amniocentesis…" he says.

He doesn't look disappointed. There is a saying on Abydos that the first sight that every girl sees is her father's disappointment. My daughter will never have to see that.

"You're happy?" I ask in shock.

"Sweetie, a baby is going to make me so happy. And I would love a daughter as well as a son," he says.

"Is she a niece?" Skaara asks.

"Yeah," I say, touching my belly. Something a pregnant Earth woman is expected to do. Something that a woman of Abydos would never do. I let the hand fall. When did I become a woman of Earth?

"Are you going to tell Abba?" Skaara asks.

"I suppose, although it will be awkward," I giggle, and blush. Here, we just wait until it becomes obvious. It would save the conversation.

"I'll tell him," Dan'yel says with a laugh.

"Here is your chance," Skaara says, giggling.

Abba walks toward us. There is no litter. No Mastage to ride upon. Just him.

"Good daughter," he says, hugging me. I can't actually remember the last time that he hugged me.

"Good son," he says, clapping Dan'yel on the arm.

"In my culture, it is custom to tell others when you are expecting an addition to your family," Dan'yel says.

Abba looks at him.

"There is a baby within me," I stammer.

Abba still doesn't say anything, but a slight grin crossed his face, especially in the corners.

Dan'yel grins, touching my stomach.

"Don't… not here," I mutter.

He pulls his hand back, "It's a girl, we know these things in my culture."

"I'm sorry," Abba says.

"Don't be sorry," Dan'yel says, "I love my daughter. You love your daughter, don't you?"

No. He never should have asked that question. I can't hear this. I can't hold it together. Just don't cry. Abydonian women don't cry.

"Of course I love Sha'uri. Love her like a sandstorm. But most daughters aren't Sha'uri," my father says.

I look into his eyes, surprised. He means it.

Our language doesn't have the words that I need to say right now. I need a "Daddy" or a "Sweetie" or… something personal and cutsie. "Thank you" is the best I can manage.

"Thank you."

Abba looks at me for a long time, "You didn't know, girl, how I feel about you?" He asks in surprise.

I'm going to tell my baby every day.

"Ah… but my daughter is going to be Sha'uri's daughter. So she's going to be amazing," Dan'yel says, taking my hand. He pulls away looking at me.

"Holding hands is ok, Dan'yel, just not anything to do with the baby, until it lives outside of me," I say, giving him a smile.

Dan'yel nods his head.

"Come, we are going to have a feast in honor of my daughter returning," Abba says.

"You know it's for a visit right?" Dan'yel asks suddenly.

"A long visit?" Abba asks.

"Four days," I offer.

"Ah," he says, and he actually looks disappointed.

As we walk to the city, Dan'yel's hand is still linked with mine.

"Your brother was sure full of questions," he says in English.

"You'd better get used to it, Daddy, kids are like that," I tell him.

"I know," he says with a smile, "We should probably start talking about some of those things though."

I'm trying to remember my brother's questions.

"How are we going to raise our baby?" he asks.

I laugh, "Don't worry, I'm going to raise your daughter as an American."

He looks at me for a few seconds before he says, "That isn't what I meant. There are parts of your culture I like. I want our baby to be bicultural as well as bilingual, Sha'uri, and there isn't just one way to raise children in America. Trust me, I was in a lot of homes as a kid."

"I… I don't know," I stammer. This is going to be more difficult than I thought it was.

"Like… there are two ways to feed a baby," he says.

"Left and right?" I ask.

His face gets red. "No, that is just one way of doing it. Some Americans use a plastic bottle."

"What do they put in it?" I ask.

"There is a powder, and they mix it up with water," I say.

"Where do they get the powder from?"

"They make it," I say.

"Who makes it?" I press.

"I don't know, I take it we're going with left and right?" he asks.

"Is the other way healthier?" I ask.

"No, actually breast milk is much better."

"Then why would people use the powder?" I ask.

"Well, some mothers go back to work, and they have trouble breast-feeding at work. Although there are these things called pumps. But also… it lets the father feed the baby."

"I'm sorry, Dan'yel, we will feed our baby with the bottle."

"No, Sha'uri, you don't have to do that," he laughs, "We can pump so I can feed her every once in a while. Breast feeding is way better for the baby."

"All right, provided that you explain what 'pumping' means at some point before that," I tell him.

"Deal," he says, placing a hand on the small of my back, "So I assume this means you'll be quitting work before the baby comes?"

"Why would I do that? Is it an American tradition?" I know that Anna doesn't work, but I didn't know it was because she was a mother.

"Ah… it used to be an American tradition, especially among military wives, which you consider yourself, although you aren't quite. But it's totally our choice. You can keep working for me part time and you can put the baby in day care, or you can stay home with it."

"What is day care?"

"Someone else watches the baby. I already asked Jack, and we would be eligible for base day care. So it would actually be free. Most people have to pay for it."

"Who are these people we would leave our child with?" I ask, feeling the urge to put a hand protectively over my stomach.

"They do background checks on the people, ah… they try to make sure they are going to be all right."

"I'm not leaving my baby with a stranger! Can't we just take her with us to work?"

"Oh… no," he stammers.

"I don't mean with you through the gate. Just when we're in the office."

"People don't take their children to work," he says firmly.

"You take your wife to work."

"No, my wife and I work together. It's different."

"On Abydos, families work together. Husband, wives, children."

"Babies don't work," he says.

"No, but in a couple years she can start playing with the tools she'll use one day. A few more years, and she's going to be able to start learning stuff-language, about the artifacts. And when she's grown she can work with us at the job."

"That is beautiful, and it was done that way on Earth for a long time, but it's just not done that way anymore. Parents look after their kids for five years or so, or they put them in day care. Then they take them to school. They learn to read, and they learn to write, and do math, and lots of other things. They go to school during the day until they are grown up, and then sometimes they go away to go to college - more school when they live away from their parents. Then they get a job that is different from their parents or the same sometimes - I mean I did the same. But I don't know if I would have if my parents hadn't died."

"Dan'yel… Who taught you to read my language?" I prod.

"My parents, but…"

"Babies pick up language a lot their first couple of years. If we want this kid to know two language, or eight languages, or twenty-two like my husband, it needs to be with us all the time. Both of us."

"I know that's right, but I don't know if it's possible. I'll talk to people about it when we get back. So diapers, cloth or plastic?"

"Well, I hate plastic on principle, but diapers like… those things Tyler wears. I never understood why they wear them."

"You've changed Tyler's diaper, you know why they wear them."

"Right, but on Abydos, babies go… like adults."

He laughs, "Are you serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious."

"I don't believe it for a second."

"You will when our kid does it, because so help me, I will not be changing diapers."

"So clearly I'm in charge of output while you're in charge of intake."

"Compromise. Our baby can wear those diapers, but I'm still going to train her."

We're at the town by now. Dan'yel presses a kiss against my temple, before we go into the feast.


	18. Hathor

**I'm going to deal with the fallout from the story differently than the series. I just can't have a character deal with a rape without dealing with a rape. I always bothered me that Daniel is in shock and then laughs at the joke Jack makes mere hours later. Just not realistic.**

A soldier comes in and hands my husband a piece of paper. It's one of those thin forms that has to do with requisitions, shipping, mailing, or other things I don't care a whole lot about, so I don't even look up.

He takes the form, "You're kidding!" he exclaims cheerfully.

"What?" I ask, looking up.

"They found an Egyptian sarcophagus in a Mayan temple!" he explains.

I'm disappointed. Usually when my husband gets excited about something it is something that is actually worth getting excited about. But other times it's just archeological mumbo jumbo. Apparently this is one of those times.

"These people are always digging up things," I say dismissively.

"Yes, but not Egyptian things in Mayan temples."

"Why is that impressive?" I ask. He's going to tell me anyway, so I might as well feign interest.

"There is an ocean between them!" he exclaims.

"You have these…" I wave my arms, having forgotten the word.

"Planes, yeah, but this was thousands of years ago. There were no planes, not even a ship which could cross the ocean."

"So, maybe they just liked the same things," I say.

"Sha'uri," he says, suddenly moving in front of me. "Before I met you, before I started working here, back when… back when I had nothing. I wrote some papers. And I was considered nuts, Sha'uri. I said that the pyramids were older than people said they were. I said the writing came from somewhere else, that it was fully developed when it was first written. I said that there is a relationship between different cultures. I just followed the evidence, and I kept coming up with these crazy answers. And I was right, Sha'uri! I saw things that no one else saw, and since working for the Stargate, I realize that all those crazy idea were truth. I was right! And this is the first time that I have proof that isn't a hundred kinds of classified!"

I don't have to feign interest anymore. I realize I've been missing – misunderstanding -something important about my husband. That shy, insecure person he used to be when we talked about money, when he showed me our room for the first time, when he talked about life before me… there were reasons behind that.

"You miss it," I say.

"What?" I ask.

"Writing those papers. Having people… listen to your ideas instead of having Jack fiddle with pens…"

"You do know that he listens to everything I say even when he's fiddling, right?" Dan'yel asks.

"You miss the respect, the reverence of being a… a whatever kind of scientist you are," I continue.

"I never had it, Sha'uri, and now I never will," he whispers.

"You have it husband," I say, grabbing his face with my hand, "I respect you."

He smiles, "I appreciate that Sha'uri, I really do. But you're no anthropologist. I… gave that up. I knew the first time I wrote those crazy things. Sha'uri, I could have written something else. Some drab version of this long standing lie. I decided I wanted truth more than I wanted prestige. When I wrote… I discovered, I learned. And the truth, was worth it."

"You are a good man, Dan'yel Jackson," I tell him.

"I want to go see this artifact, are you going to stay or come with me?" he asks.

"Come," I say.

This is not at all what I expected. It's a sarcophagus.

"Dan'yel, you said this was Egyptian, but it's…" I stammer.

"Goa'uld, I know," he says.

"Tell Captain Carter to come, she needs to examine the technology," he tells the guard as he starts running his fingers over it, "And the Colonel and the General, too."

He touches the artifact gently with the tips of his fingers glossing across it. He's reading it, admiring it, and practically worshiping it. Like he does to me when we make love.

There is nothing Dan'yel likes more than an artifact, except for me.

I remember that I am my husband's assistant, not just his wife. I start translating the text at a different spot than Dan'yel.

He looks up at me. "This is Goa'uld."

"I know," I tell him, looking back at the hieroglyphics.

"You don't read Goa'uld," he says.

"I beg to differ," I say, reeling off a few lines of text.

"When did you learn to read Goa'uld?" he asks.

"Dan'yel, have I not been working beside you for the last six months?"

"And in that time you learned English, and Goa'uld?"

"Hey, I have to catch up with my husband at twenty-six languages."

"I am really glad you're still going to be my assistant after the baby comes. No one could ever fill your place. You are unbelievably useful. Proud of you, and unbelievably impressed."

"Hey, you got permission to take the baby on base?"

"Yeah, but you'll stay home for a while after the baby's born right? A couple months?"

"Sounds like another compromise. That is becoming my favorite word," I say, with a smile.

Jack and the General walk in, "My wife speaks Goa'uld."

"You called us down to the gate room to tell us that," Jack says. He turns to me with an apologetic look, "Not that being trilingual isn't impressive."

"He actually called you down here to talk about this," I say pointing to the artifact.

Sam walks down the stairs and I give her a smile.

"What is it, Doctor?" the General asks.

"I know this thing," Jack says.

"Yeah, we recognized it, too," Daniel says.

"It's the thing that turned me from a widow to a wife," I said.

"Ditto," Dan'yel tells me. We have never really talked about our deaths when we first met. We should probably do that.

"I don't know. But if it does belong to a Goa'uld, it would explain a lot. Like why there's no one in it, and why it has Egyptian hieroglyphs on it instead of Mayan," Dan'yel explains, going into complete anthropologist mode.

"General Hammond, Sir," an airman says, entering the room.

"What is it Airman?" General Hammond asks.

"Sir, a person was just arrested at the mountain surface for attempting an unauthorized entrance," he replies.

"Happens every now and then. Let the police handle him," the General replies.

"It's a her, sir. Major Lowell thought you would want to talk to her yourself," the Airman says.

"Why?" The General asks with a question that is more like a bark deep in his belly.

"Sir, she knew the Stargate was here," the Airman says.

"Let's go," The General says.

I'm not sure if I'm part of the 'let's'. Dan'yel settles it for me by kissing my temple. "You going home or staying on base?"

"I think I'll get a head start on translating this," I tell him.

I expected Dan'yel to come find me after they were done with a meeting. But hours pass, and he doesn't come. I've finished translating the sarcophagus, and I head back to his office. I figure Dan'yel must have got distracted with something there. But he's not there.

I head to Sam's lab, she's there. "So the meeting is done, where is my husband?"

"He's just giving a tour to Hathor."

"Hathor? She's a Goa'uld."

"We know, she claims to be on our side."

"No, we have to find him. There is a myth about female Goa'ulds. They are said to breathe a poison that makes a person do whatever the Goa'uld wants."

"That makes perfect sense from what I've seen of Hathor so far," Sam says.

"Where are they starting the tour?" I ask, growing more and more frantic.

"You should be asking where they are ending the tour, and the answer is the VIP quarters."

"Come with me," I plead. If fighting is required, I am going to be worse than useless now that I have a baby waddle.

She nods. We walk up to the base quarters. The door is locked, but Sam has the key. The door opens, and there is a woman on top of my husband. She's got short red hair, and not a lot of clothes.

I don't say a word.

Sam screams, "Daniel!"

"He was brainwashed," I remind her.

Sam goes toward the woman, and her hand is up like she's going to slap her. Hathor fiddles with something on her arm. A hand device. I reach over and grab onto it. Hathor is pushing back against me, and is stronger than me.

Sam goes forward, and pulls the hand device off and hurls it against the wall. Hathor lets out a scream of anger.

"Back up, Sha'uri," Sam tells me. I don't know what she's planning, but whatever it is, she has the same commanding voice that Jack uses. I take a few steps back. Sam takes a step to the side, and take the gun out of her pocket.

Hathor tilts her head to the side, obviously puzzled by the device. Sam fires the weapon. Point blank range. At her chest. Hathor falls to the floor, and Sam moves close to touch her neck.

"She's dead… I killed her," Sam says in shock. "I've never killed a person before,"* she repeats in shock.

"That wasn't a person, that was a Goa'uld," I remind her.

"All the same…" she replies, shaking. I know that Sam needs comfort right now, but I'm more concerned with Dan'yel.

"Dan'yel?" I say. He's sitting up on the bed, still looking completely stunned. "Honey, it's me, Sha'uri, are you ok?"

He doesn't answer.

"Dan'yel?" I ask again, touching his shoulder. He jerks away from my touch.

"Sha'uri, he's probably in shock. We need to get a medical team up here," Sam says softly.

"Yeah, are you ok?" I ask her as she reaches for the phone.

"Yeah," she says but her hands are shaking.

"Sam," I say putting an arm around her.

She walks to the phone, "We need a… a med team to the VIP quarters."

I give Sam another hug, and she seems to be shaking less. I sit down in front Dan'yel, looking into his vacant eyes, "Hey, Dan'yel this is Sah'uri. Can you please say something to me? Anything?"

He tilts his head a little so he's looking at me.

"Sorry," his mouth forms the words soundlessly. Tears streaming down his face.

"No, Dan'yel, what happened was not your fault."

"Sorry," he mouths the word again.

"You did nothing wrong. I love you so much, Dan'yel. I wish you hadn't gotten hurt. She hurt you. You didn't do anything wrong," I repeat.

Sam walks over and feels at Hathor's neck again, "She's… really dead."

When is the med team getting here? Because I am definitely out of my league.

I don't want to leave Dan'yel alone after what's happened. But Janet chased me out of the infirmary. I would go and see Sam, but Jack is with her (the men returned from their altered state), and he's more qualified to deal with this than I am.

I slump down outside the infirmary, leaning against the wall.

It could have been worse. In a few minutes it _would_ have been worse. She didn't touch me, so why do I feel so violated? If I feel like this, what must Dan'yel feel like?

It's hard to tell, because he's in shock.

Yes, the shock. How does this "shock" work? Is he going to be like this forever, or is he going to be normal again? And what was he drugged with?

"Sha'uri?" Janet says.

"How is he?" I ask, standing.

"He's… well, physically he's fine."

"Is he talking?" I ask.

"A little," Janet confesses.

"Do you know if anything happened before we got there?" I ask.

"He talked about a kiss. And… her being on top of him. I don't think more happened than you saw."

I go into my husband's room. The hospital bed is empty.

"Dan'yel?" I ask softly.

He doesn't answer me, but a shuffling of feet draws my attention to the corner of the room. Dan'yel is in a hospital gown sitting on the ground. I sit down next to him, and lightly touch his knee. He jerks away from me.

"It's ok, it's me," I assure him.

His eyes focus on me, "I'm so sorry, Sha'uri."

"You didn't do anything wrong, honey. I'm sorry this happened to you."

"I kissed her," he tells me.

"I know, you were drugged."

"I also touched," his eyes indicate my breasts.

"I'm not going to be mad no matter what you tell me. It's not your fault, and I love you," I assure him.

"We didn't have sex," he says looking down.

"Good."

"You saved me from that," he says.

"I'm glad," I say, touching his hand.

He pulls away again. "I'm sorry," he mutters.

"That's ok, I've just got to stop touching you for a bit."

"I want a shower," he whispers, with teary eyes.

"I'll go ask Janet," I tell him. I start to get up, but he grabs onto my arm to keep me there.

"Sha'uri," he says, "Listen to everything before you talk. Don't stay with me just because of the baby. If you want to leave me I'll give you money for the baby, and take care of the baby sometimes, you can take it the rest of the times."

"Done?" I ask.

He nods.

"I'm not leaving you. Ever."

I heave myself off the floor. It's becoming more of a task the bigger I get.

"Janet, he wants to shower," I tell her.

"He can do that now," she nods.

"Is he going to be able to… go home with me anytime soon?" I ask.

"Yeah, in fact if he wants to take the shower at home he can. He's needed for a briefing tomorrow, but until then…"

"Thanks," I say.

***In "The First Commandment", I get the feeling that Sam has not killed before, although the episode doesn't actually explicitly state that. By my reckoning, Sam's first kill was Seth, which was actually accidental. "Hail Dorothy." But I figure seeing one of her best friends being raped would probably cause her act on instinct and training and would be enough to get her past the barrier she ran into when she was pointing the gun at her ex-fiancé's head.**


	19. Children of the Gods

**Sorry for the delay. I had a busy couple of weeks at work, and lots of work on my house to do. Then I had family up for Memorial Day weekend, and took a trip for my nephew's birthday. And I returned home to water in my basement. Joy. I have things more or less under control now, and I'm off for the summer, so hopefully I'll be able to post more often.**

**Oh, and I got a dog. Who I named Cassie, partially in honor of everyone's favorite alien orphan (and also after the star constellation).**

When Dan'yel first suggested that we take one more trip back to Abydos before the baby arrived, I absolutely loved the idea. Now, I'm beginning to think that I was a little bit crazy. Being two weeks shy of your due date is incredibly uncomfortable. I feel huge. I can barely walk. It seems like the only think that I ever do is pee. I'm really not feeling social. At all.

But Dan'yel is pretty excited about it, so I fake enthusiasm when I'm half inclined to cancel the whole trip.

It's great to see my family again. They are very excited about the baby. I can tell. They are following the norms of my people, and not really mentioning it, but they keep looking at my belly and asking about my health. Father also seems particularly interested in details of Earth, particularly the ones that would have to do with Earth child rearing. Although, the way that Dan'yel and I have chosen to raise our child is not exactly the typical Earth way. Although it is a long way from the way that Abydonians raise their children as well.

They have a banquet to welcome us as a sandstorm rolls in over the dunes. I realize that I have missed sandstorms. It's crazy to miss something you used to complain about, to view as an inconvenience. But sandstorms force you to stop whatever you are doing. They make you bow to the whims of nature. Dan'yel's people never do that. They ignore nature or bend it to their will. If it snows they move the snow away, and continue with their lives as if the snow had never fallen.

Dan'yel is studying something in the temple. There is nothing to read, so I am talking to Skaara. I can help my husband translate, but I am useless when he is doing any of his other kinds of work. Suddenly, the gate activates.

"Who could that be?" Dan'yel asks, coming towards where we are talking.

Out of the gate come men wearing metal, complete with the head of a snake. They come out, shooting their long staff weapons. My brother shots at him with one of the weapons the people of Earth left him. But a man grabs him by the throat. The man presses a button and his snake head disappears for a human head.

"This is not your weapon, where did you get it?" the man asks him.

My brother spits on the man.

Another man whose suit is made of gold instead of silver like the others takes the snake's head off of his own, and says, "Good choice, Teal'c. Perfect specimen." He then holds something above the Skaara's head, and causes him to pass out.

I scream Skarra's name, and try to go to him. Dan'yel grabs my arm to try to stop me. The man in the gold suit turns to me. "If you were not with child, you might be the one," he says. He takes a machine from his pocket and touches it.*

Immediately pain curses through me.

"Sha'uri! What's wrong?" Dan'yel asks in panic.

"It's ok," I assure him. "I think he is just making the baby come."

The man in gold comes close to me, and tries to take me from him. Dan'yel draws the gun he always carries and fires it at the man in the golden suit. I don't know if my husband is a poor shot, or if he was just trying to scare the man. Either way he misses.

But the man is surprised enough to let me go.

"Run, Sha'uri, save the baby!" Dan'yel pleads.

If he hadn't added on that last little bit I would have stayed and fought by my husband's side. As it is, I run to a part of the temple that Dan'yel just discovered the other day. I know that no one will find me there. I lay down, and try to keep silent as a wave of pain moves through my body.

I need Dan'yel here. I need to know that he is ok. But I also need to focus on having a baby.

The sounds of the firefight die away. I walk into the main room. I am stopped by two contractions on the way. They are occurring far more often they should be according to the Earth books and classes that we took.

There are many people that are wounded. "Dan'yel!" I cry.

One of the men who was guarding the gate grabs onto my shoulder, "They took him, Sha'uri. They took him through the gate."

"Where? What symbols?" I plead.

He shrugs his shoulders.

"I have to go home," I demand. He can see that I am having trouble, and he helps me over to the dial home device. I know the numbers, Dan'yel never would have let me through the gate if I didn't have them memorized, and I have a copy of his iris code device that I am permitted to use whenever I am off world.

When I walk through the gate I scream, "Medical team!"

Anna's husband repeats my order into the microphone. In a few minutes, people in white suits rush into the gate room. Janet is among them.

"You're in labor, aren't you?" she asks.

"I am, but… You have to help the people on Abydos. And you have to get someone to save Dan'yel and Skaara."

"What happened to Daniel?" she asks.

"He was taken by… a Goa'uld of some kind. I don't know his name, but he wears the head of a snake over his own head.

"Ok, we've got to get you to the infirmary," Janet says.

A contraction hits me, so what I meant as a statement comes out as a scream, "I need my husband."

"Sha'uri, we are going to send people to Abydos. We are going to help the wounded, and we are going to do our best to find your husband. Right now, you need to focus on having a baby. Then when your husband gets back he'll have a wonderful new baby to hold and love. Ok? We're going to do everything we can for him."

I nod my head, and allow her to take my arm, and go to the infirmary.

News trickles in to me every now and again from what is going on in the gate room. But there really isn't much news to report. Jack and his team went to Abydos. They came back a few hours later and reported to the General that they had pieced together the coordinates of a gate address. They were sent on a mission to get my husband and brother back.

The pains get worse after this, and with them comes an urge to push that I just cannot deny. I want to make the baby wait until my husband returns to me. Strange, since I've wanted nothing more than the baby out of me for the past couple of weeks.

Janet gets a nurse over to hold my hand, but I don't accept the help. They are busy helping the wounded among my people, and they can't really spare a healer to give me emotional help.

My little girl enters the world with a scream. Janet puts her on the bulge of my stomach, and I am suddenly filled with such love for her that for one second there is not even room for worry for my husband inside of my heart.

"Naima**," I say, cupping a hand over her tiny head. I considered changing her name while I was in labor with her. After all, "ecstatic joy or elation" didn't really seem like an appropriate name for someone who is born when her father is missing. But it is a name that Dan'yel and I picked out for our daughter together. And I won't have her growing up with a name of which her linguist father didn't approve.

They cut the thing which binds the two of us together, but we will forge new bonds. Bonds which will last all of our life long. I pull her up to my breast. Her tiny mouth finds it, and she latches on. I run my hand over her head, gently, carefully, because I remember hearing about the soft spot in one of the classes that I took with Dan'yel. I like the intense feeling of being needed as she drinks from me.

She finishes her meal, and one of the white coats takes her to be cleaned up.

Without my baby in my arms, I feel more alone than I ever have before in my life. I need… someone. I give Anna a call first. I know that she can't actually come and see me, but I feel like she deserves to know. She's done more for me during this pregnancy than anyone else except for my husband. I call Sara next, and she arrives soon enough after that I'm reasonably certain she wasn't obeying all of these strange Earth traffic laws.

"Where is Dan'yel? Did he get caught in an off-world mission?" she asks as soon as she arrives.

I shake my head, tearing up.

"Whoa, what's wrong?" she asks, moving closer to me.

"He was… captured by the Goa'uld. It would have been me. But he distracted them. Told me to run, to protect the baby," I stammer.

"And you did exactly the right thing; you kept this little one safe. That was your most important responsibility. Is there a rescue mission?" she asks.

"Yeah, your husband is leading it," I tell her.

"Ok, see now? Everything is going to be alright. Jack is going to find Dan'yel. They will both be home in no time. And you have this little one, what could be better than that?"

I nod my head. I'm not sure I believe her, but worrying isn't going to do any good. And I do have his baby to take care of. "Do you want to hold her?" I ask.

Sara nods her head. She takes the baby into her arms in the exact careful way that I learned at the baby class. She holds her tight to her body, and looks at her for a long second before a flood of tears runs down her face.

"Sara?" I ask.

"I'm sorry," she mutters, handing Naima back to me.

"No, Sara, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to come. I knew that this might be… hard for you."

"Sha'uri, you may find this hard to believe... But I really am happy to you. But along with all that happiness…."

"Is profound sadness," I say.

She nods.

"Sara… I hate to ask. But have you and Jack ever considered adopting?"

She nods her head, "A long time ago, before Charlie died. We thought about finding a way to give Charlie brothers and sisters. But now… I'm not sure if Jack would be open to having children. I think it would just remind him… you know he's never forgiven himself."

"You may be right. But it could also be that he desperately wants a kid, and you desperately want a kid, and some kid out there desperately wants you guys, and you are going to be apart forever, because none of you speak up about it."

"And you know Jack won't be the one to bring it up," she says. "I'll think about it, Sha'uri."

"And… Dan'yel and I were going to tell you and Jack together. But there is this thing called godparents?" I say.

"You want us to Naima's godparents?" she asks.

"Yes. We're going to ask Walter and Anna too, because it's not altogether unlikely that if Jack and Dan'yel were too… well, that they'd go together."

She nods.

"I'm honored. And your husband is fine," she assures me.

I wake up. The infirmary is dark, and at first I'm not sure what woke me up. Then I see him in the chair.

"Dan'yel."

He moves toward us, "Right here, honey, you ok?"

"Yes! How about you, the one captured by the enemy?" I exclaim.

"I'm fine, Sha'uri," he says, but there is something in his voice which renders him unbelievable, "I'm just glad you could keep this little one safe."

"What happened, Dan'yel?" I say, in a firm no-nonsense voice I learned from Jack.

He stands up to pace, which wakes Naima and she lets out a wail. I hold out my hands for her, but he shakes his head and bounces her while he paces. This calms her down, and she starts to gurgle.

"They got… Sam," he whispers.

"So you guys will find her."

"No… they turned her into a Goa'uld."

"What?" I ask in horror.

"The Goa'uld are not the people themselves, you know… like the people we see. They are these little things that go inside of their heads. Well, they put one inside of Sam, and now she's not Sam. She's this… queen of the Goa'uld or whatever."

"Well, you still have to get her back," I inform him.

"I know… we're working on it. And we, ah… we brought someone back with us. He's a Jaffa - which is like a soldier for the Goa'uld. He used to work for the Goa'uld, but he's on our side now."

"How sure of that are you?" I say in alarm.

"Pretty sure, he's… well… he's the only reason I made it back to you, Sha'uri. I invited him for dinner next week. Is that enough time for you to recover? I know you just had a baby, but…"

"I'm not sure I'll ever be recovered enough to be happy about a Jaffa warrior in my house, but we'll make it work," I mumble.

"And just one more thing, he has a Goa'uld… a baby Goa'uld in his stomach."

"What? You expect me to be in the same room as a Goa'uld?" I shout. "I can't believe you are even suggesting it when you just lost your teammate to this… this thing! And what exactly do you propose we do with our daughter when this all comes about? I hope you aren't seriously suggesting that we just let our daughter be in the same room as this… monster!"

"Teal'c isn't a monster. He's a monster's incubator," Dan'yel corrects.

"And what assurance do we have that that thing isn't going to crawl right out of his body and into hers?"

"I doubt a Goa'uld could infect one so young," he says.

"That is not the point, Dan'yel! Give me our daughter, and go," I command.

He looks hurt, and I feel guilty. Just a little guilty. So I add, "You're probably tired. After being captured by the Goa'uld."

He nods his head, "I could do with a sleep… As long as you are sure that you are ok?" he asks. I nod my head and he gives me a kiss on the forehead as he places the baby in my arms.

***In "Secrets" Teal'c suspects the coming of a Gou'uld ship caused Sha're to go into labor. Maybe, maybe she just did. And maybe the Ancients invented a really snazzy quick, and safe way of inducing labor. They were a very old civilization, and I think that would be the sort of thing that someone would want to invent eventually. I bet there are quite a few overdue woman who have contemplated it in our society. (Not that we don't have a method. But it isn't exactly a button you push.)**

****This name is ****Swahili****, because Sha'uri's name is Swahili. No one else's name in her village is Swahili, and no one in Ancient Egypt spoke Swahili. But some people in modern Egypt do, and Abydonian is a fictional language, so I can model it on any language I want.**


	20. Line of Duty

**Note: Despite the name of the chapter, it actually contains incidents from both "In the Line of Duty" and "The Enemy Within." I'm sort of combining seasons one and two now. My reason is that I skipped parts of season one that would have been time sensitive (could have only happened at a certain time in history) and I think that season two would still be developing at about the normal rate. However, "In the Line of Duty" is going to be very different from the one in the series, because there is going to be a different team. I debated this not happening in their world (since you don't see other members of SG-1 doing a whole lot of CPR), but then I have a dead Jacob Carter on my hands, and I couldn't quite deal with that. So in order to prevent myself from becoming a murderer…**

Janet lets me out of the infirmary in the morning. I check Dan'yel's lab, and his quarters on base, but find no trace of him. So I head home, figuring he must have gone there to get his rest. But the house is empty as well. I sit down in the rocking chair to rock with my baby for the first time.

Half an hour later I head the front door crack open. I want to go meet my husband, or at least call for him to let me know where I am. But the tiny baby in my arms has fallen asleep, and there is no way that I am going to risk waking her up. She's just too beautiful when she's asleep.

But he knows where I am anyway. He opens the door a crack. I smile at him, and he seems a little surprised by it.

"I'm sorry about before. I was just… I don't know, maybe it was the hormones," I say with a shrug.

He moves until he is sitting at my feet. "No, Sha'uri, I'm the one who should be sorry. You were just protecting the baby. And you were right. We probably shouldn't be exposing a newborn to an alien life form. But you were also wrong. Teal'c is a good guy. I really think you should give him a chance sometime. When I'm watching the baby, of course. Jack and Sara are going to have the barbeque at their house; you could meet him then. If you don't want to, I'll go instead."

"I'll meet him, since it matters so much to you," I say.

He looks down at the baby, "She's so…"

I pause, waiting for him to continue. He doesn't, but after a few minutes of silence he reaches out to touch her hand. The baby's fingers curl around his by instant.

"A linguist running out of words," I mutter.

"Imagine that," he says.

"Dan'yel… where were you?" I ask.

He sighs, "Kowalsky has a Goa'uld in him."

"What? How?" I exclaim.

"I guess he got it on the last mission. He didn't know it at first. Just headaches, and then blackouts, and… I was with them for the interview with it. He's going to have surgery later today or tomorrow, depending on when they get the doctors flown in."

"What I'm hearing is that you never got the rest I told you to," I say.

"Rest is grossly overrated," he replies with a tired smirk.

I stand up, and lay the sleeping baby in a crib, then I take of Dan'yel's glasses and rub his temples.

"Sha'uri," he protests, in an already-getting-sleepy voice, "I can't sleep right now. I have to…" yawn, "Spend as much time with you as I can before I have to head back to work for my teammate."

"Alright, well I could stand a little bit of sleep myself. So how about we spend time together while sleeping together."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Obviously I'm talking about literal sleep. I had a baby a day and a half ago."

"Just watch the English idioms my dear, they could get you into trouble," he mumbles, before shuffling across the hall to the bedroom that we share.

Naima's screams wake me up. But Dan'yel is already crossing the floor. "I'll get her," he assures me.

"If I'm in charge of intake, you getting her isn't actually going to accomplish much," I point out.

But when he actually hands me Naima, somewhat calmed by being held, and I never had to leave the warmth of the blankets what he did is looking like a pretty good plan indeed. Once she is fed, I show my husband how to hold her over the toilet so that she will relieve herself into it, and spare us from having to change so many diapers. He laughs when she actually goes.*

"Not as crazy as you thought I was, now, am I?"

We lay back down with the gurgling baby between us. We talk to her, and about her, until all three of us fall asleep again.

The next time we wake up its Dan'yel's alarm that is the culprit. Naima begins screaming at the top of her lungs. By the time I get her settled down, Dan'yel is already dressed and ready to leave.

"Are you going to be alright here? I can call someone to come over?" he asks.

"I'm fine, but I'll probably call Anna anyway."

"Ok, I'm going to go see how the surgery for Kowalsky is going. I'll be back as soon as I can," he tells me, planting a kiss on both of our foreheads.

Anna comes over for a while, declaring the sleeping baby to be the most precious thing that she has ever laid eyes upon. After she leaves, I take another short I take care of Naima and make myself dinner, and still Dan'yel isn't home. I try to call him at the SGC, but I don't get an answer home. Now, I'm starting to get worried again. I thought I had enough worry to last at least a week.

Anna calls a bit latter. Walter called her from the SGC. He'd been knocked unconscious. Walter was fine, and he'd assured me that Dan'yel was also fine.

A few hours later Dan'yel comes home, and tells me the whole classified story that Anna couldn't have known. They had thought that Kwalsky's surgery was a success. So they had been quite unpleasantly surprised when he had tried to escape through the gate. In the end, Jack was forced to kill Kowalsky, and Dan'yel had stayed late to comfort him. But at last Jack had insisted that Dan'yel must go home to be with his new baby.

"So when do you work tomorrow?" I ask.

"I don't. I have two weeks of paternity leave. Robert will be on the team until I get back," he says.

"Good, I need a break from worrying about you," I tell him.

"And you can probably need a nice nap," he says, "So pump, and I'll take care of the baby for the next couple of hours."

And I am reminded once again how gratefully I am that I don't have to do all of this alone.

Somehow when Dan'yel said that he was taking a break, I didn't actually think it is going to be a real break. I expected the SGC to be calling in every couple of days, and that he would sneak away to his lab every few days. But he is true to his word, and doesn't so much as mention the SGC for a full five days.

So I didn't begrudge him the phone call that came from the SGC, even though it was a particularly long phone call. When he gets off the phone, I can see that something is seriously wrong.

"What happened? Did something happen to Sam?" I ask, even though I can't think of anything that could happen to Sam that wasn't worse that what had already happened to Sam.

"No… Robert," he says.

Robert Rothman is the archeologist that is temporarily replacing Dan'yel on the team. My husband worked with him back when he was in college, before he met me. As soon as he got this job he recommended Robert for work at the SGC. But this was Robert's first field mission. Up until then, he had only worked with artifacts in an office.

"What happened to him?"

"He got turned into a Goa'uld," Dan'yel says in shock.

"Again?" I stammer, shocked that it would happen twice so close together.

Dan'yel nods his head numbly.

"At least they think that is what happened," Dan'yel stammers, shocked. "They didn't even realize anything. Jack says he was acting a little bit weird when they came back from their last mission. But Jack doesn't know Robert that well, so he actually didn't know that much about what was weird for Robert. Right after they went through the gate on the other side, the Goa'uld knocked everyone out, including Teal'c. I know you haven't met Teal'c yet, but you have to understand that he is a big man. But none of them were expecting an assault from someone on their own team. So after Robert knocked them out he was just… gone. Teal'c woke up and saw the tail end of the address, but they aren't sure if it's going to be enough to follow him."*

I'm shaking a little. Dan'yel sees this, and takes Naima from my arms, and helps me sit down. "Dan'yel, if you hadn't stayed home for a while right after the baby came… If we hadn't had a baby at exactly this time… I can only imagine what might have happened! You could be a Goa'uld right now!"

"Sha'uri, it's ok, I'm not a Goa'uld," he assures me.

"No! But THREE of your teammates are!"***

He nods his head, "I know."

And I feel like an ass, because as much as this is scaring me it's got to be scaring him a whole lot more. Besides, he is no doubt grieving for these people. They're not dead, but… still, you have to imagine that he is grieving for them.

"I'm sorry," I say, throwing a weak smile his way.

"Sha'uri, I understand what you are saying, and if you ask me to find another job I will. They would probably let me do lab work at the SGC."

"Do you want to do that?" I ask carefully, examining his face.

I can tell that he doesn't before he answers, "No," looking at his feet. Then he looks directly into my eyes, "But I will."

"I don't want you to quit your job, Dan'yel. I just… want you to be safe. I want THEM to be safe too."

He nods his head, sitting down beside me and squeezing into a seat that was really only made for one. "I love you. I will do my best to come home to you all the time, but you know I can't make you any promises. I am so far from able to make you any promises."

"I know," I say. "I like knowing that you would quit for me, but I also want you to know that I am never going to ask you to do that."

***I swear this isn't one of my unrealistic moments. I'm not even writing a gifted child at this point. I have known babies that are trained this way and only dirty a few diapers a week. **

****I think that in this reality, Jolinar would have made it through the gate. Cassie isn't in the picture yet. In fact, there is no-one on base who could detect a Goa'uld besides Teal'c. Teal'c didn't alert us to Sam having a Goa'uld in the original. The reason most likely being that they hadn't developed that particular part of the story line yet. But we'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that maybe Teal'c just didn't get close to her (it seems like you have to be hugging distance, and Teal'c doesn't really strike me as the hugs-his-teammates-for-no-particular-reason kind of guy).**

*****The way the episodes from season one and two are fitting together it does really seem like Daniel's teammates are dropping like flies. You can't exactly begrudge Sha'uri her alarm.**


	21. Secrets I

**This happens far earlier in the year than it did in the original series. I figure Sam wouldn't hang around with Kasuf for several months before unburying the gate and dialing home. That never made sense to me. Why didn't Kasuf unbury the gate early, and reunite his pregnant daughter with her husband? **

"Sha're!" Daniel exclaims. "Sam just called, she claims that she's fine."

"Daniel, you know that Sam is a Goa'uld," I remind him.

"I do know that, but… Kasuf was there too. He says she is acting normally. So maybe she found a magic cure like Thor's Hammer. Or maybe she really is still a Goa'uld, and your people are at risk. Either way we're going to go visit. I just wanted to know if you wanted to come, bring the baby, and see your family."

I haven't been home since Skaara was captured almost eight months ago, and Dad has seen my baby. But I don't want to go. The thought fills me with the memory of Skaara being taken. "Yeah, I'll come with you."

"You don't have to," he says, sensing my reluctance.

"No, my husband can't go and visit my father without me."

"Are you scared?" he asks, hugging me.

"Memories," I mutter.

"You really don't have to. I can tell Kasuf that they wouldn't let her come."

"Naima should meet her grandpa. Even though I really wish she were going to be meeting her grandpa _and_ her uncle."

"I know," he says, hugging me.

"Maybe Sam will be coming home," I say.

"I hope so," Daniel says. "We have to go gear up."

When we get through the gate, Teal'c levels his zat at Sam.

"You don't need to do that, Teal'c, I'm not going to hurt anybody," Sam says.

"How are you not a Goa'uld?" Jack asks harshly. "Why should we believe you?"

"I still have a Goa'uld in me, she's just inactive right now," Sam says.

"Why?" Jack says suspiciously.

"Because I'm pregnant," Sam says.

"Who is the father?" Jack says.

"Really?" I say, glaring at him. "She's been captured, had her body taken over, and tortured, and you're asking…"

"Apophis," Sam interrupts, looking down.

"Oh, Sam," I say in sympathy.

"How are we going to know this isn't a trap?" Jack asks.

"You can't. If you do an MRI, she'll still be in my head. And the truth is, the moment that I give birth, she is going to reappear. She can't come now, or the baby will die. And Aphophis won't let that happen, because he wants this baby as a new host."

"No," I say in horror.

"How pregnant are you?" Jack asks.

"We need to move, O'Neill," Teal'c says.

"What?" He says.

"By taking her to the base, we either rescue Major Carter or we capture a Goa'uld. Either way, we are successful," Teal'c says.

"I agree," Jack says suddenly, "Move out people."

"Sha'uri, are you leaving already?" Abba asks.

I look at Dan'yel. "Would it be alright if we stayed a little longer, Jack?" Dan'yel asks.

Jack pauses, "Yeah, we'll expect you back in what say… two days?" he asks.

Dan'yel nods.

"All right; move, people!"

When we have seen our friends through the gate, I draw out the baby that I have had wrapped around me. "This is your granddaughter, Abba."

"Ah," he says, holding the child close to him. "What is she called?"

"Naima," I say.

"Yes, well, 'joy' she is." The baby whimpers, and he rocks her back and forth. He's good with babies. Was he good with me when I was small? What was Abba like before Omm died? I'm having trouble trusting my memory. "Come daughter, and we shall feast," he says.

I was glad that I took a visit to see Abba, and sad that I waited as long as I did. But as soon as I went back to Earth, I knew I needed to have a chat with Sam.

She's sitting in a prison cell, and I take a seat that's been provided in the room outside of her cell.

"Hi," I say.

"Hello," she says absently.

"So how far along are you?" I ask.

"A little over two months," she says.

"Ah, the time when you are nauseous, and hungry, and exhausted."

"Yeah," she mutters with a slight smile.

"So, I take it they don't exactly believe you?" I ask.

"I have no proof," she says.

"Well, you certainly sound like yourself."

"But the Goa'uld can do that," she says. There is a long pause before she goes on, "Sha'uri, you understand, because you carried a baby within you. I don't care if this thing is evil. Or the child of evil, or whatever. But it's mine, Sha'uri. And there is a good chance that I'm not going to be able to raise it…"

"Sam, you didn't even need to ask. Of course I would take care of your baby."

"Thank you, Sha'uri. I truly appreciate it. But… I have a father. God, he's going to be disappointed in me, having a baby and not taking care of it. But it can't be helped. I want him to… I don't want to hurt your feelings, but he's family…"

"I understand, he raised you," I say with a smile.

She nods, "But when the baby's born, and I stop being me, you're going to have to take this baby to him. Explain it to him."

"Of course. How are you doing?"

"Fine, I guess."

"Well, you're pregnant and in prison. I wouldn't call that fine."

She sighs, "It's better this way, because so help me I'm not going back to that monster." I pause, just waiting for her to continue, "If Amaunet showed up at any point during my pregnancy, the baby would have died. That includes conception," she mutters.

"Oh, so that was all you," I mutter quietly.

She nods, "Took three months, and he kept me for over two months afterward just to make sure I was pregnant. I tried to lie about it once… hoping it would stop. And he dropped me off in your world, thought he was dropping me home. It was risky; I mean, he knew he'd have to re-abduct me. But I'd made that much of a bother of myself - mostly talking, but inflicting pain whenever I could get the chance. I gave him a pretty good injury to his baby maker once. I was hoping it was permanent."

"Good job," I offer.

"Fat lot of help, I'm still pregnant with his baby," she mutters.

"Your baby," I correct.

"He's counting on Amaunet returning to him. He never imagined a human being willing to live in prison for months to keep that monster from taking over." Her face suddenly becomes incredibly sad.

"What?" I ask.

"I'll be in prison for the rest of my life. In two prisons, really; these bars, and my own body."

"Don't say that, we found Thor's Hammer. And Robert just came back after being a Goa'uld or a Tok'ra or whatever."

"Tok'ra?" Sam asks.

"You've heard of them?" I say.

"Of course I have! The Tok'ra could save me. They have extraction procedures."

"We're not friends with the Tok'ra so much as they did us a favor once," I confess, "Do you know where they are?"

"No. If Amaunet knew that, there would be no Tok'ra."

"We'll find them," I offer.

"Sha'uri, there is another thing. You have to make sure they don't let me go. I mean, after the baby comes. Not unless they are sure that Amaunet is gone. I don't want the Goa'uld to know more about Earth than they already do. She kept quiet about the information already in my head… I don't know why. Amaunet is soft in a fashion, almost sweet. They don't have roses anywhere else in the galaxy, and I think she has been keeping quiet about the planet mostly just for the roses. But you have to understand, that if she choose to share that information, Apophis would not hesitate to destroy everything we are. You have to be sure that she never becomes free."

"Of course," I agree.

"Thank you," she says.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," an airman says as he enters the room, "But we have to do her interrogation now."

"Would you like me to stay?" I ask Sam.

She shakes her head. "I'd actually much rather you went. But... thank-you, Sha'uri. For everything."

Teal'c walks into the room with the person who is to interrogate Sam. He moves his chair so that it is not facing her, but facing her interrogator. There is something amazing to being a member of SG-1.


	22. Need

**So I think I promised a Broca episode to either all of you or to one of you in response to a review, I can't remember. Unfortunately, I can't follow through on this promise. You see… everyone is currently a Goa'uld or immune. I mean yes, I could have Jack, and Sara, and Sha'uri go all cave person. But really, what are they going to do that is interesting enough to read a story about? Nothing that won't ruin my future plans for them. And Naima isn't old enough to make a great cavewoman (Would an infant caveman be different from a modern infant? Interesting question). So I'm moving past, zoom.**

**Also not going to do a Torment of Tantalus because it wouldn't effect Sha'uri's life. I think I hinted this one might be coming.**

**I'd better stop hinting what episodes I may or may not include or the first half of my stories are going to be apologies for what I am NOT writing about.**

SG-1 has been delayed coming back from a mission again and again. They have been gone days longer than they should have been. But each time it is my husband's voice that is asking for an extension, so I know that they are alright.

I was there to meet them when they come through the gate. I can't see my husband, because he is behind all of his teammates, but they look like they have had a very rough mission. They are covered in dirt, and look like the world has beat them up.

Naima gurgles in the mei tai I have her in. Daniel isn't a huge fan of the fact that I bring her to work. But I just can't wrap my head around the fact that they leave their babies with people they don't even know. Besides, I haven't technically gone back to work yet. I took a couple of months off after the baby came. I've been using that time to begin studying for this important test the people of Earth call GED. I go in just a few hours a week to keep my husband's office in order (what a disaster it would be without my help!).

Jack walks past General Hammond, "We had a nice time, sir. Carter picked up some naquada, Teal'c made some new friends, as usual, Daniel met a new girl, and I'm going to hit the showers."

Jack obviously didn't see me standing there against the wall, but he does as he turns toward the showers.

"Sha'uri," he blurts. I think it was supposed to be the beginning of an apology, but whatever else there was of the apology never quite makes its way out.

"Dan'yel?" I ask.

"Sha'uri," Dan'yel says, "I have to explain to you… explain to you why I need to go back."

His words are crushing me, destroying me, but I can see that there is something wrong with him. I've never seen someone quite like this. There is something frantic in the way he walks. It's just not right. It's just not Daniel. "Who do you need to get back to?" I ask.

"The who isn't so important. It's the what!" he explains. "I've been in the sarcophagus."

"What was wrong with you?" I ask.

"Nothing! I feel great! I've never felt so great in my entire life!" he exclaims.

"Sha'uri, Daniel was trying to get this woman to trust us so she would let us go," Feretti explains, "I don't know what happened when we were in the mines, but before that… he told her he was married. He told her he didn't want anything to do with her."

"Before what?"

"Before he got addicted to going into the sarcophagus. That thing acts like a drug," Jack explains.

"Yeah, a drug that makes you stronger, smarter, and faster!" Daniel explains.

"So your plan is to leave your baby girl, and live with this woman on another planet?" I ask. "Look at her, Daniel. Hold her!"

"I don't think that is such a good idea," Jack says moving his shoulder ever so slightly between me and my husband.

"Geez, Jack, she's my baby! What am I going to do to her?" Daniel says angrily.

"You're high, Daniel, so probably something you're going to regret."

Daniel takes off his pack, and flings it across the room.

"Airmen, restrain this man," General Hammond says from deep in his stomach.

"Sha'uri," Jack says as they lead my husband out of the room, "I know you hate putting that baby in day care. But I really don't think Daniel should be around her right now. But he needs you. So I'm going to call Sarah to come down, and watch her, is that ok?"

I nod my head, and he pulls me into a close hug.

I hate seeing Daniel like this. All four of his limbs are died to the bed, and he's writhing.

"Sha'uri, they are trying to kill me!"

"No, they are trying to help you. Dr. Fraiser says that your blood levels are returning to normal. You're getting better," I tell him.

"You're just jealous of Sha'ya!" he screams back at me.

"No, I'm not. I probably should be, but right now I just want you to get better," I tell him. Suddenly I notice something. "Guard! His hand's come lose!" I exclaim. He jumps up, and is about to knock me against the wall, but he stops.

"Dan'yel," I say.

He closes his eyes.

I pull him into a hug, "It's going to be ok," I assure him again and again, and all the while I am really assuring myself.

A few days later Daniel is well and completely recovered. Recovered enough that I'm carrying my daughter around with me again. Then I hear that SG-1 is going through the gate-to the planet where Dan'yel got addicted to the stupid sarcophagus in the first place.

He hasn't really told me what happened there yet. And I didn't push him, after all we're pretty early in his recovery. But this needs to be confronted before he decides to leave me forever.

I run into the gate room to find them already geared up. I run over to my husband and slap him in the face. He is surprised, but automatically pulls both of my hands to my sides using one of the self-defense moves that Feretti and Jack taught us. Just as well, I didn't intend to hit him again.

"You're leaving me, and you didn't even have the decency to tell me? To say goodbye to your daughter? I guess you did tell me, but you were high then! I didn't think you would stick to the decision to leave me when you were thinking clearly once again!"

"Sha'uri," he says, dropping my hands in order to run his rough palm over my cheek, "I am not leaving you," he leans forward and kisses the sleeping Naima on the forehead, "Goodbye, sweet daughter… for a couple of hours. And nothing ever happened between Sha'ya and I besides a kiss. I only did that because I was high, and because I was trying to get my team home. I'm sorry about that, I am. I was going to confess to all of this, and beg you to forgive me when I got home."

"Why are you going then?" I ask, beginning to feel a little bit foolish, but not willing to let him go off world until I am sure that everything he is telling me is the truth.

"I'm trying to get her to give up that sarcophagus, and free those people," he explains.

I bite my lip. I still don't like this, "You'd better be careful, and don't get in that thing again."

Just then the gate opens up. SG-1 runs into the control room.

"It's Dr. Rothman's code, sir," Walter says, giving a confused look to General Hammond, "And there is some radio to go with it."

"Rothman's a Goa'uld, sir," Jack reminds us, "I don't think it would be a good idea to let him on base."

"It doesn't hurt to listen to the radio," Daniel days.

Suddenly we hear Robert's voice, "I know you guys are probably not going to believe me, but it's me! The Goa'uld… well, she didn't like to be called a Goa'uld. She liked to call herself a Tok'ra. Anyway, the Tok'ra let me free as soon as she was able to. She had to find a willing host. See, that is how the Tok'ra are different from the Goa'uld… they wait for a willing host. As soon as she found one she let me go."*

"Why would anyone want to be a host to a snake head?" Jack asks.

"The girl she found, she had cancer. If she hadn't become a host to Jolinar, she would have died. Please, I…. this Goa'uld/Tok'ra coming out of you thing - it hurts. More for the Tok'ra… there was a chance she could have died. But I'm free, and I want to come home, and have some of the doctor's powerful pain medicine."

"It could be a trick, Sir," Jack points out.

"It's also a member of our team, sir," Daniel points out, "I'm not suggesting we don't take precautions. Put him in a holding cell until we're sure. But… when he went through the gate, he believed we had his back."

Jack gives a nod. The General leans forward and says into the microphone, "A defense team to the gate room." Then he transmits to Rothman, "Don't come through quite yet. Give us the gate address, and we'll come to you."

"Understood. Thank you, General," a very relieved voice says on the other side.

"A Goa'uld who only takes willing hosts," Daniel says slowly, thoughtfully. He turns to me, "I'm going to be here for a while. Why don't you head home?"

"I want to stay," I tell him. I want to go back to work, and my husband will accept it better day by day.

A few hours later, Robert comes through the gate, and my husband goes into what I can tell is going to be a very long meeting. I head back to his lab. I've kept it neat even while on leave, so I decide to see what my husband is working on. I quickly become absorbed in translating. I take a break to feed my baby, and return to my work for a few hours before Daniel returns.

"He defiantly doesn't have a Goa'uld in him. And after the Goa'uld took a new host… he talked to the new host. She was definitely willing."

"She?" I ask.

"Apparently this Jolinar really likes female hosts. Rothman even talked about Jolinar's boyfriend. He was pretty crept out by that whole thing."

"So it sounds like… good Goa'uld. That could be incredibly useful," I point out.

"Right, but this Jolinar didn't exactly leave Rothman with an address."

"But they are out there," I point out.

"Right… someday, and Rothman is safe."

"That's good news," I say.

"We're going back to the planet tomorrow. Jack wants us to bring home the sarcophagus. I don't know if that will be possible, and it seems sort of dangerous to have one of those around. But we'll try," he says with a smile. "I'm heading home, you coming?" he asks.

"Yeah, just let me finish this line," I say. Daniel comes up from behind me, and wraps his arms around me. His head peaks out around my neck. "I think you are a faster translator then me."

"Maybe for the two languages I know," I say.

"Right, and how long did it take to learn those?"

Naima lets out a whimper that we both know means she needs to go to the bathroom, "Let me take her," he says, moving to the side and pulling her out. "I'll meet you back here."

***This is what Jolinar promised to do with Sam, so I'm going to go ahead and assume that she actually meant to do it, and only couldn't because she died while inside of Sam's body.**


	23. Cassie

**Yeah, I don't know what happened with this chapter. But it was bad. I'm reposting, and hopefully this will be better.**

I heard that they found a little girl, but it didn't seem real until I see her walk through the gate. The whole gate room is turned into a decontamination chamber to ward off some sort of disease. She is holding my husband's hand on one side, and Jack's on the other.

"Hi," I say bending down to look the girl in the eye.

She turns, and buries her face in Jack's side.

"It's ok," Jack tells her ruffling her hair, "Sha'uri here is Daniel's wife. Did you see that she has a little baby there-in that bundle?"

Cassie turns her head to look, and I pull the carrier a little away from Naimia's face so the little girl can see in.

She smiles.

"Do you think you can go hang out with Sha'uri while I go to a meeting?" Jack asks. She responds by burring her face further into his side.

"It's ok, Jack, I'll brief the General," Daniel says.

"I've got your room set up a little, it's pretty plain right now," I offer.

"I want to talk to Sha'uri for a second, I'll be right over here," Jack says taking a few steps away from her. I follow him, "Sha'uri would you mind getting some things for her room?" he asks slipping me a credit card.

"I don't know much about Earth children. Perhaps I could get Sara to help me," I say.

"I'd really rather you didn't," he practically whispers. Darn, I know how badly Sara wants to have a child. How badly she wants to adopt a child, which is the only way that she's going to have a child.

"Right, you know that girl is really attached to you?" I whisper.

Jack sighs, "Sha'uri, the reason that I don't want Sara to know quite yet…is that she'd be crushed if everything doesn't work out with this little girl. I'm going to be crushed to, but that can't be helped. Sha'uri, there are a thousand things that could go wrong before this little girl is up for adoption on Earth."

I smile, "I understand. Just like there is a thousand things that can go wrong before a baby is born after a woman finds out she's pregnant," I point out.

"Yeah, Sara and I did that to," he says with a cough.

"Jeez Jack, I didn't know," I say.

"Just please don't…even hint about this kid until I'm sure. I don't want Sara to have to lose anything else."

"Ok, I'll go shopping for a little girl," I say placing my hand on his shoulder, "I hope it all works out for you, Jack."

The door to the little girl's room is open, and I can't help but pause before entering.

"No, let's see…"Jack says, "what else should we put in this picture?"

Cassie draws something on the paper.

"The baby, yep, she belongs there. See, all these people, you're not alone." Jack says.

"Hi," I say walking into the room, and setting down the bags.

"Oh, should we see what kind of things Sha'uri brought us?" Jack asks.

I pull out the bedding, and spread it across the bed. The little girl reaches into the bag, and pulls out a stuffed animal. She pulls it toward herself. "Thank you, Sha'uri," Jack says with a smile.

"Right, if you need anything else, I'll be in Daniel's office. I see you have lunch," I say pointing to the hot dog. "I'll bring you supper."

When I come to deliver the super a few hours later no one is in the room. I decide to head over to the infirmary to see if Janet knows where they are. Janet has already taken a big interest in the child. When I get there I see right away that there is seriously something wrong. The people are tense like when a mission goes bad, and they have a wounded team, but they aren't moving around like this the case.

"What is going on?" I ask them.

"The girl from another planet. They're doing surgery on her," one of the nurses says.

"What? I just saw her a couple of hours ago, she was completely fine!" I exclaim.

"I know, but they found something on her heart," the nurse replies.

"Where is Jack?" I ask, knowing that he has got to freaking out right now.

She points the observation deck. I go up there, and sit next to him.

"Are you ok?" I ask.

"I'm worried about her," he says pointing to the girl on the operating table.

"Right, but there is a whole room working on her, and you're up here by yourself. So, I'm going to worry about you."

"She could die," he says.

"What's wrong? She got the sickness? I thought Janet said she wasn't sick."

"No, she's…got something in her heart," he says sounding devastated.

"Her heart?" I ask in shock, "Can't they use the sarcophagus?"*

"Janet says no," he says distantly.

The machine starts making a sound. Jack looks completely panicked. He stands up, and moves toward the window.

"What's happening?" I ask.

"She's flat lining," He says, "Her heart has stopped.  
I stare in horror as they pull things out of her.

"Come on, Cassie," Jack whispers.

They are getting flat panels near her. Suddenly Janet puts out her hands in a way that clearly means to stop.

"What happened?" I ask frantically.

"She's…I think she's ok now. Well, that's probably an overstatement. But her heart is beating again."

"She's going to be ok," I assure him.

"Maybe," he mutters sitting back down, he runs his hands over his face.

After a big Janet comes up into the room, "Hi, Sha'uri," she says with a smile.

"What's going on doctor?" he asks.

She sighs, "We were not able to remove the object."

"What was it?" he asks.

"I don't know. We got a sample, so the biopsy should tell us more."

"So, what are we going to be able to do for her?" Jack asks.

"For now," Janet says not even looking at him, "Frankly, not much. We're going to put her back in the room, she should be waking up in a couple of hours."

"I dropped of your lunch," I tell Jack. "But maybe you should go get something to eat, go take a break. I could watch her for you."

"No," he says.

"Jack, you need to take a break," I prompt him.

"Sha'uri, I appreciate it, I really do. But that little girl is pretty attached to me, God help her. She has almost nothing in her life, I can certainly give her a friendly face to wake up to after her surgery!"

"Ok, but I'm more than willing to sit with her," I remind him, "Or I could sit with both of you."

"I'm fine," he assure me, "I would appreciate it if you called Sara and let her know that I'm fine, but that I also don't know the next time that I will be coming home. But you can't tell her about Cassie."

"No problem," I assure him.

I head over to Daniel's lab to make the call.

"Sara, everything is fine," I say very quickly. Whenever, I call from the base I have to say this right away, because she worries if I don't.

"Ok, what is going on?" she asks pretty calmly.

"Ok, all of Jack's team is fine. But he's not going to be coming home for a while."

"Does the planet that he is stranded on at least have a name this time?" she asks in a tired voice.

"He's not stranded. He's right on base. He's with a refuge. Someone came through and they are really sick, and Jack is the only person that they trust. So he's staying with them as they deal with some pretty serious stuff," I say.

"Well, considering the careful use of pronouns I can tell that this refuge is a female. Is there cake involved? Should I be worried?"

"No, definitely not. She is female, but I can guarantee there is nothing going on. First of all there is quite an age difference. And she's sick. And Jack loves you. He would never do anything if there wasn't some alien influence involved."

"Ok, so Jack is hanging out with an old woman. Give me updates to let me know how thing are going."

A few hours later I hear that they are planning on sending Cassie through the gate. This isn't the first time that strange rumors have come through the gate. So, I go to the gate room, and I'm shocked to see Jack standing there next to the little girl.

"What is going on?" I ask him in shock.

"They are sending her through the gate," Jack says in a cold voice.

"What?" I ask in horror.

"We don't have a choice," he says harshly.

All of a sudden Cassie falls to the ground.

"Cassie!" Jack exclaims kneeing on the ground next to her. Janet rushes in, and checks for her heartbeat.

"It looks like she's slipped into a coma," Janet says.

"What?" Jack asks.

Suddenly Teal'c and Ferretti come through the gate, "Get the kid away from the gate!" Ferretti exclaims.

I drop the baby off with Dan'yel in his office, and then go to the infirmary to see how Cassie is getting along.

"That thing inside of her body is a bomb," Jack says.

"What?" I ask in shock.

"And it will go off if she gets near the gate, we can't remove it, and it's going to go off anyway in a few hours.

"How could I do that?" I ask through clenched teeth.

He doesn't answer. After a long pause he says, "They are getting transport ready. In a few minutes they are going to come here, and I'm supposed to drop this little girl off in an abandoned bomb shelter, and then we are going to wait for her to explode."

"Let me do it Jack," I say.

He stares at me.

"Jack, you've lost a kid," I say.

"I know that, you haven't. Let's keep it that way," he mutters.

"Jack, I'm less attached to her than you are. I'll take her down," I say.

"She'll have to be carried all the way," he says touching her hair. It's strange there is something in his voice, that I can't detect. I think perhaps he is giving me the go ahead, but when he continues any suspicion of that flies out of my head, "I'm going to see this through Sha'uri. No doubt it is a stupid thing to do, but there isn't much of a chance of my doing anything else."

I put my hand softly on his shoulder. He lets out a big sigh, "Well, it's time to get you to the top of the mountain, little one."

I wait near the surface for Jack to come back. I know that he's not going to be doing well. This is going to totally, and completely destroy him.

So when the van he left in opens up four hours later, and he has a big grin on his face I am confused. Perhaps, there is some body snatching going on.

Then I see that he's holding the hand of a little girl.

"What happened?" I ask rushing forward, and giving the little girl a bone shattering hug.

"Apparently, when you get farther away from the stargate the object shrinks. She just came back from some tests Janet gave her at the hospital, and she aced every one, right girl?"

"So the object has shrunk?" I ask nervously.

"Yep, shrunk almost done to nothing. If her next couple tests go as well we can be sure that she's safe!" He says picking up the little girl, and swinging her around in a big circle. "Hey, can you hang out over there for a little bit, while I talk to Sha'uri?" Jack asks the little girl.

She nods, and obeys.

"She's been cleared for adoption," Jack says to me conspiratorially. "I have a big favor to ask you," he says searching my eyes to see how he feels about it. I smile, and nod at him, "I want to know how Sara would feel about adopting. But I don't want her to feel pressured. Can you take Cassie to the park, and just sort of figure out how Sara feels about it?"

"She's going to be thrilled, Jack, she's talked about adoption with me before," I confess.

He gives me a strange look.

"I told her that she should bring it up with you, but she's scared."

"Scared of what?" he asks.

"Scared that you don't really want it. Scared that after Charlie…"

"Maybe she's also a little bit scared of adopting after Charlie," Jack suggests.

"I really don't thinks so," I say.

"Just, please, could you take Cassie to the park tomorrow? Find out if they click. Don't tell either one about the possibility of adoption. And give me a call if it looks like there is chance?"

"Of course," I say, "You're going to stay the night with Cassie?"

He nods, "She's got more tests in the morning, but she will be cleared by about ten o'clock."

"Sara, and I will stop by to pick her up then," I assure him.

"Sara," I say. I don't need the 'everything is ok,' prefix, since I'm calling from the home phone.

"Let me guess, my husband is spending the night with the sick old woman," she says.

"Well, she's not a sick old woman, she's a little girl, but yeah," I say.

Sara's voice sounds week and worried as she continues, "So the little girl is sick? I she going to be ok?"

"Yeah, she's fine now. For a while there things really didn't look good. But she's out of the woods now," I offer.

Sara lets out a sigh of relief that could shake the walls. "Ok, so if she's fine, why is he staying? How old is she?"

"I don't know for sure, eleven or twelve I would guess. She still has a few tests in the morning. But he asked if you and I would be willing to take her to the park tomorrow."

"I'd love to!" Sara exclaims, "So what happens next? She goes back to whatever planet she came from?"

"Ah…no, there isn't much for her to go back to. Her whole planet pretty much died. She's going to be living on earth now."

"Ah…so tomorrow," she says with a really sad note in her voice. Maybe, Jack is right, maybe she changed her mind, and doesn't want to adopt anymore.

"Cassandra, this is Sara, she's Jack's wife," I say.

Cassie looks up at her and smiles, "Jack says that earth parks have something called swings," she confides.

"They do, would you like to go play on them?" Sara asks.

The two seem to be instantly bounded. Sara seems almost able to predict what Cassie wants. And she seems to sense the child's insecurity, and she manages to talk her out of all of her fears. But the whole time I can tell something is eating Sara alive.

When Cassie goes to play with another, kid Sara sits down next to me.

"Why the hell doesn't he want her?" Sara asks her eyes fixed on Cassi.

"What?" I ask staring at her.

"Jack spent two days with her, in some sort of medical emergency right? Holding the hand of a sick little orphan. And he doesn't want her. He will never want to adopt. If he doesn't want her, he will never want anyone."

"He wants her," I say. She turns to me completely surprised. I laugh. "He sent me here to feel out how you felt about adoption. I told him that you'd considered it in the past, but he didn't believe me."

She starts to cry, "He wants her?"

"Yeah," I say.

She grabs onto my arm, "She's open for adoption then. They aren't going to send her back through the gate? Some aunt or grandma isn't going to show up, and want her?"

"No, everyone that knew her is gone, and the official papers came through."

"Everyone she knew is gone?" Sara asks.

I nod.

"Poor thing," Sara says silently for a minute. "Her medical stuff? She's all better now?"

"Yes, everything is fine."

"What was wrong with her?"

"She had a bomb inside of her," Sara's eyes bulge. "In her heart, but it's gone. There is nothing left."

"She had a bomb in her heart?" she asks.

I nod.

"And Jack wanted to adopt her, and he didn't call me?"

"He didn't want you to have to deal with the death of another child," I tell her.

"What a sweet, sweet, stupid man," she mutters.

"I'm going to go call him, don't say anything to Cass until he gets here," I advise tapping her leg.

"Thanks Sha'uri," she says with a grin.

"Congratulations," I say.

"Thanks," she says.

"Jack, get down here, she definitely wants Cassie," I tell him as soon as he picks up.

"How do you know?"

"I asked her."

"Sha'uri! I specifically asked you not to ask her!"

"She was in tears wondering why you didn't want the kid."

"You told her I did right?"

"Yes, are you coming down here?"

"Be right there, Sha'uri."

"Jack!" Cassie explains running into his arms.

"Hey, Cassandra, how has your morning been?" he says spinning her in the air.

"Careful of your back, honey," Sara says touching the small of his back.

"It's fine. So, we're at a yes."

"Yes."

"Sure?"

"Yes."

"Cassie, let's sit down I need to talk to you." He leads him over to a bench. I try to give them space, but Jack invites me to join them with his eyes.

"So, Cassie, you're going to be living on Earth from now on," Jack says.

"Sara knows I'm not from Toronto?" Cassie asks.

"Yes, she does. But you know that with most people…" Jack begins.

"I'm from Toronto," Cassie finishes.

"Yep," Jack says.

"I assume I'll get a copy of this cover story," Sara says.

"Some of the details are still being worked out," Jack admits, "Anyway, Cassie, now that you live on Earth we need to find you a family with whom you can live with."

"We'd like to be that family," Sara finishes.

She looks from one face to another, "Really?" she asks.

The both nod.

"Yes!" Cassie says pulling both of them into a hug.

After a hug, Jack her back so he can look at his face, "We want to officially adopt you eventually, but that wouldn't be official for a while. And I think, Cassie," Jack is going all tense, and I don't know why, "that you need to know something before you decide if you want to come live with us. And it's ok if you change your mind after you find this out. We…had a son." Jack clearly can't go on. Cassie looks really confused.

"Honey, our son died," Sara says.

"I'm sorry," Cassie says sincerely.

"It's not just that…he…" Jack can't go on.

"He shot himself by accident," Sara says.

"It was my…."Jack is trying so hard not to cry. But both of the girls are closer than him. "It was his gun," Sara offers.

Jack is shaking his head, "fault. My fault."

"No," Sara says shifting so she can wrap her husband in a hug. "Jack, it wasn't your fault."

"She needs to know," Jack says.

"Cassie, Charlie got ahold of Jack's weapon, and accidently shot himself. It was no one's fault. I would tell you if it was. But Jack blames himself, because parents are supposed to protect their children. They are supposed to keep their children safe."

"Jack, it's ok," Cassie says plastering herself against his chest, "I love you."

"Cassie….I….he died," Jack chokes out.

"It wasn't your fault," Cassie says snuggling close to him, "I'm sorry you lost your son. I'm also really sorry I'm not a boy."

"Woe, Cass, you have to understand something, honey. You are not a Charlie replacement. You are you, and that's all I ever want you to be. Got it?"

Cassie doesn't say anything.

"You hear me girl? You are perfect the way you are," he repeats.

She nods against his chest. "And I love you, too," he says kissing the top of her head.

Sara rubs her back, "Love you, Cassie."

"You too Sara," Cassie mutters including her in the hug.

*They retrieved the Sarcophagus at the end of Need.


	24. Secretes II

I go to sit near Sam for our daily chats. Teal'c is sitting next to her, not talking, but keeping her company. He's been doing that a lot lately. Sam told me that he feels guilty about her being taken captive, and has been doing this as a sort of apology or reparations. I think there is more to it than that, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the Jaffa had a thing for the scientist.

If Jaffa can even like humans, I'm not exactly sure how all of that works out. I fell in love within my own species at least, though not in my own culture.

Right away when I sit down I can tell that something is wrong, and I have a pretty good guess of what it is.

"Sam, are you in labor?" I ask.

"No," she says quickly.

"Are you sure? Because it kind of looks like you are."

"Nope, I'm not in labor, because the baby is early. It can't come early, because I deserve every single second of living as myself before this beast comes and takes me over," she says.

"So you're just going to cross your legs and keep the baby inside for another month?" I ask.

"That's the plan, yeah," she says with a nod of her head.

"Sam."

"Sha'uri, it's like being sentenced to death, and having the execution come to take you a whole month early. It's not fair."

"You're not dying, Sam."

"No, you're right, what is about to happen to me is way worse than death."

"Sam, we're going to find you a cure. We're going to find the Tok'ra or we're going to find some other way to get that thing out of you."

"I'm scared," she says.

"I know, I would be too," I confess.

"Will, you bring me pictures of the baby? I mean, after it's born. I'd like to actually see the kid, but I think that would probably traumatize him. I mean, by then I'll be her. But I still get to see what she sees and hear what she hears so…"

"Of course, I'll bring you pictures."

"And if my dad won't take him. I'm sure he will, I don't know why he wouldn't…" she mutters.

"I'll take care of him if you Dad can't. Everything is going to be fine, Sam," I assure her.

"And you won't let her get out…"

"Sam. We have this handled. Now I am going to call someone to come, and help you deliver the baby now, ok?" I ask.

She nods her head.

I actually go inside of the cell while Sam is delivering the baby. She really doesn't have anyone else to hold her hand. Right before she starts to push they tie Sam down. I start to object, but Sam tells me not to. I guess they are right, she really could pose a danger in a few minutes. It's just hard to believe, because right now she is my friend.

The second that the baby enters the world Sam's eyes flash with a spooky color and she says some vague threat in Goa'uld. I'm suddenly glad for the restraints, because she lunges for the baby. "Give him to me! I must return him to my lord Aphophas!" She shouts.

And somewhere in there is my friend. I'm glad we're stopping her body from hurting her baby. I can't imagine what kind of pain that would be like.

Dan'yel wanted to go with me to drop off the baby, but he is working on a really important translation that they need by the end of the day. So Sara and I went. And I didn't take our son with me. It's the first time that I have been away from my baby for more than a couple of hours. I'm really nervous about it, and I think that Dan'yel is somewhat insulted by my nerves.

"You know she is my daughter too," he reminds me. I do have a littler baby to fuss over, though. It's been less than a year, and already I am missing what Naima was like when she was this tiny.

I ring the doorbell, and a bald man comes to the door. You can tell that he's spent most of his life in the military just by the way he holds himself. My husband hasn't developed this, but the rest of his team have it in spades. I don't think that Sam mentioned that her father was in the military.

"Jacob Carter?" I ask.

He nods his head, and I can tell that the door is already halfway shut in his mind. On earth, people close doors on one another a lot. Dan'yel says it is because people come to the door that have no business being there. But on Abydos we would never deny someone access to our tents. Even if they did not have a reason for wanting it.

"Samantha Carter's father?" I ask.

"Yes," he says looking worried.

"I have some news about your daughter, may I come in?"

"No offense, Ma'am, but you aren't the way the Air Force usually delivers news."

"I know that, but I'm a friend of Sam's, and she asked that I deliver this news to you personally. My husband works wither her."

He nods his head, and lets me in to his living room. "I'm sorry to tell you, but you daughter was taken prisoner, a little over a year ago."

"Well, this is the very definition of slow news!" he interrupts.

"I know, but we recently found her."

His eyes, which up to now have been clouded in worry light up, "You found her? She's all right then?"

"No, she's alive," I say looking down, because right now even that seems like a stretch.

"What's wrong with her? Where is she?" he asks, but I can already tell that he doesn't really expect to be answered.

"The nature of her injury is classified. It's not fatal, but it has rendered her…unconscious for the time being. We're not really sure if she is ever going to wake up. But let me assure you, we are trying everything in our power to make sure she does. She has some really great people fighting on her side. She is a national hero, and we would do anything for her."

He nods.

"I can't tell you where she is either, and it wouldn't really matter if I could, because you won't be allowed to see her."

"Because of the classified nature of her wounds. I get it. But you've seen her? She is really ok?"

I nod my head.

"There is something else that you should know. While she was captured by the enemy a lot of things happened to her. One of those things resulted her in getting pregnant."

Pure fatherly fury fills his eyes. "They raped Sammy?"

I nod my head.

"I hope the bastard will die for it!"

"He will if we catch him," I say.

"So she's unconscious, and pregnant," he says, "Is the baby ok? From what I remember of POW camps they are not the best places to carry a baby."

I wonder how much he knows of POW camps. Is it as much as Jack knows? "She had the baby. He's fine. I talked to her after she came back from being captured, and before the baby was born, and she lost consciousness. That is when she asked me to come and see you, and to have you take care of her baby. She named him after you, but she said if you didn't like it, she said you were modest, that you could change it."

His voice cracks as he says the next words, "Sammy wanted me….to take care of her baby?"

"She did, Sir. If you don't want to my husband and I would be more than willing to do it. The wife of someone else on your daughter's team has the baby right now. So if you decide to take him, or see him before we go back."

"Of course, I'm going to take him! He's my grandson." He sighs, "How is she? I mean….I can't even begin to imagine what she went through. I know there are medical difficulties now, but how was she…before. When she talked to you?"

"She was worried about this baby, and if she'd ever be able to take care of it. I'm sure there are a lot of problems from what happened to her before…but she seemed like she was dealing with all of that as well as could be expected."

He nods. "There is something I should probably tell you. I have cancer. It should effect my ability to care for the infant. But perhaps you'd better leave me the name of your husband and yourself. Just for me to get down legally, if anything should happen to me…of course her brother could take the child too, but it sounds like you were her second in line to raise it."

"I'm sorry Mr. Carter. I am not from this country, and I am still learning the language. I don't know what this word 'cancer' is," I stumble, not sure why he's talking like a soldier going into war.

He lets out a long sigh, "Well, it's this nasty little disease. It kills a lot of people. I'm not…I'm not there yet. But it's not…good."

"We can keep the baby, you need to focus on getting better," I say.

"When you're sick…you sort of need something to live for," he protests.

"How about my husband and I take care of the baby, and you come live near us, and see it. You can be a grandparent to the little guy. That way you can still have your something to live for, and the baby will have a home whether you are sick or healthy. I have a daughter, she's just over a year old now. It will be nice to have a little one around the house again."

He smiles, "A year is still a little one. Sammy was two when her little brother was born, and it was like having two babies. But it's a good plan."

"I know that asking you to move is…" I begin.

"I'm retired. What's more, I'm retired from the Air Force. These past six years in D.C., are the longest I've ever been in one place in my whole adult life. It's about time that I moved. Now you mentioned meeting the little fella?"

"Right, I'll just make a quick phone call," I say as I pull out the phone and ask Sara to come in. She's walking around the block with the baby in a stroller. In a few moments he pulls up to Jacob Carter's front door. He's on the step waiting for her. I will never forget the look that crossed his face when he saw his grandson for the first time. I'm sure I wore that look when my daughter was born. I bet Dan'yel did too, but I was too busy to notice. But that look, that absolute love, it was enough to break a heart. Or mend one that was already broken.

As he is holding the baby it suddenly occurs to me: we have a sarcophagus, and that cures everything.


	25. Rapid Growth

**Sorry for the slower posting lately. My always amazing beta had some computer issues.**

I am taking care of the little Jacob for now. I am still trying to get the older Jacob cleared to use the sarcophagus. It takes a whole lot of paperwork to get that done. If you work for the SGC, and are mortally injured whilst doing official work, they just pop you in, assuming you haven't overdone your once per year maximum. For family members of the SGC it's possible, it just takes a lot of work. There could be special circumstances if he was actually near death (which, from what I can tell, involves the General and Janet as the head doctor both giving the go ahead). But apparently, although he's sick, he's just not that sick. So we have to watch him suffer.

"Dan'yel, there is something different about Jacob," I say. My husband is translating something at the kitchen table while I play with the kids in the living room. Naima is building a tower, and knocking it down while Jacob has his important "tummy time".

"Is he sick?" Dan'yel asks.

"No, it's just… he shouldn't be able to do all the things that he can do. At least, not yet."

"Sha'uri, you know that babies develop in all kinds of different ways. Just because one baby did things one way doesn't meant that it's the right way to do it, or the only way to do it."

"I know all that, Dan'yel, but this is way more than sped-up development."

"Come on, just because Naima was a little bit slower at that age than he is doesn't mean there is anything wrong with her. She's fine now, right? Sixteen months old, and walking and talking. So, Jacob is a little bit faster than her. In the big picture, what difference is a couple of months going to make?"

"That's not what this is about. I'm worried about Jacob," I say, and it sounds a little ridiculous in my own ears. "Dan'yel, he's a month old, and he's already sort of crawling."

"So," Dan'yel says with a shrug.

"So, babies aren't supposed to do that until they are three or four months old."

"So, maybe Jacob is gifted. He _is_ Sam's baby; I wouldn't find that particularly surprising."

"Well, Naima is your baby, so by that logic she should already speak a dozen languages," I protest.

"So this is about the difference between their development then?"

I let out a long sigh, "No, it's not. He's big, too. I mean, he's a monster for a month-old. He's wearing six-month-old clothing."

"That happens, too," Dan'yel says, "When I was in foster care, I knew these two sisters, they were two years apart, but they used to share clothes. They were the exact same size."

"But they weren't babies."

"Oh, I don't know, I think it started when they were pretty young."

"Maybe your right, and I am just worrying about nothing," I mutter, even though a part of me remains unconvinced.

Jacob looks me in the eye, and smiles, as he crawls toward me.

"I just worry about him, because as far as we know he is the first baby ever born to two Goa'uld hosts. Sometimes, I just worry that there are some consequences to that."

Dan'yel comes over next to me on the floor, and kisses my forehead, "Jacob is fine. No matter how he came into existence, he is just fine right now. Aren't you, little man?" he asks, laying down on the floor and pulling Jacob above him. But I still know that something is wrong. He shouldn't be able to do that yet. There is no way a one month old's neck should be strong enough to support himself when he is being held by the armpits. This is just so wrong.

"Me, Daddy!" Naima says pulling on his elbow.

"Right, your turn," Dan'yel says handing the baby to me.

**Three weeks later**

When I hear crying at one in the morning, I head into Naima's room instead of Jacob's. That doesn't exactly seem like the logical choice, I mean you would think it was the two month old instead of the one year old. But when Naima was little, I made countless middle-of-the-night trips into her room. I've yet to make one into Jacob's, not even the night we brought him home from the hospital. And when you wake up at one in the morning. your body is pretty much on auto pilot, so it just went were I normally did.

Of course, when I see my little girl sleeping, I realize the mistake and head into Jacob's room. He's standing, unstably hanging onto the bars of his crib. He's crying with all that he's worth, and his eyes look terrified.

"Hey, Jacob, it's ok," I say, picking him up.

He buries his head in my shoulder, and continues to cry. I give him a little bounce that used to calm Naima down. Jacob's needed surprisingly little calming down in his life. The bouncing isn't working so I check his diaper. Nothing. I head out to the kitchen and make him a bottle. He won't even take it into his mouth.

"What's wrong, little man?" I ask.

"'eams," he sobs.

"What?" I ask, no way he just talked to me.

"'eams," he says again.

"Dreams? What are you dreaming about?" I ask.

"Oold," he says.

"You had a dream about the Goa'uld?" I ask.

"Oold 'ad," he mutters.

He's seven weeks old, and he just gave me a two world sentence. "It's ok, the Goa'uld can't get you here," I say.

I rock with him, and talk with him until he falls asleep. But I can't bear to lay down a baby who just has a nightmare about the Goa'uld, so I take him into bed with Dan'yel and I.

The next morning, I hear Dan'yel talking to Jacob as he gargles.

"Morning," I say.

"Our bed seems to have a stowaway," he says with a smile.

"He had a nightmare," I say.

"He's a baby, Sha'uri," he reminds me.

"I know."

"So how do you know that he had a nightmare?"

"He told me so," I say.

Dan'yel laughs, "Were you talking to Sha'uri, huh? Did you learn to talk?"

"'alk, Da," he says.

"What?" Dan'yel says.

"'alk, Da!" he exclaims.

"It's got to be babbling," Dan'yel says.

"Here is the thing, if it was just babbling it would still be months early," I say.

"But it can't be…" he says.

"Dan'yel, we have to take him to the infirmary. He's growing too fast," I tell him.

"You're right, Sha'uri, I should have done this weeks ago when you first told me that something was wrong," he says guiltily.

"It's ok, we're going to take care of it now," I say gently.

"Little man, you are not so terribly little," he says gently to the baby.

"I'm worried about the fact that he told me he was dreaming about the Goa'uld," I say, "We never talk about these things in front of the kids, so how did he know?"

"Are you sure that he says Goa'uld?" Dan'yel asks.

"Oold," Jacob says. "'ad oold," he adds. And I get the feeling that he is trying to warn us.

"Yes, the Goa'uld are very bad," Dan'yel agrees, trying to calm him. "I'll go get him dressed, you want to get Naima?" he says to me.

"Deal," I say.

I'm incredibly frustrated right now. I thought it was hard to get my husband to listen to my instinct that there was something wrong, but it was nothing compared to trying to convince medical people to listen. They have been shoving us to nurse after nurse. Finally, Janet comes in and looks at him.

"That's not Jacob, is it?" she asks, confused.

"Yes!" I exclaim.

"Not Sam's Jacob?" she repeats.

"Yes, it is," I say.

"Oh, my God. He's…"

"Not quite two months, but he's talking and wearing 1T clothes."

"Ok, I'm going to take some blood," she says.

"'K, oc'or," Jacob says, and then he sticks out his arm, exposing his vein.

Janet glances at me with panic in her eyes.

"I know," I say.

Jacob is standing grabbing onto my knees, and babbling. I'm not sure what percentage of what he says is real words, and what is just babbling.

"Ma, ma 'er?" he suddenly asks.

"What?" I ask.

"Ma, 'ammy, 'er?" he asks.

"Yes, your mom is Sam, and she is here," I say.

"Ee'er! Ee'er!" he says getting so excited that claps his hands. That causes his hands to leave my knees, and he falls down.

"You want to see your mom?" I ask.

He nods.

"You can't do that. Your Mommy is sick," I say.

He searches my face.

"No," he says, shaking his head, "Ma oold."

My heart stops. How did he know that?

He tilts his head at me, and tries to climb up on my lap. I hold him tight, thinking that he wants me to comfort him.

"'Der 'der," he says. The baby is trying to comfort me!

"Sha'uri," Janet says, "We got the results of the blood test. He has nanites in his blood rapidly aging him. I need to get him into a room and start exposing him to different waves. It might take some time to find the right frequency, but I think we can fix this."

"And will this help the nightmares?" I ask.

"I don't know, that could have just been a fluke, Sha'uri. We'll worry about them if the continue," Janet says.

"Ok, I can sit with him?" I ask.

"Yes. I'll get some books or something; it could be hours."

"Can I call Dan'yel to bring some things from home?"

"Sure," she says, "You can use the phone in my office, and then you can head into isolation room one."

Twenty minutes later, Dan'yel comes in and sits down next to me. He opens up a bag, and sets it on the floor.

"Have they got it yet?" he asks.

"No, they come in every ten minutes to check the ones in the petri dish. They figure that if those ones are affected, the ones in him will be too. They haven't found the right frequency yet, but they have only tried twenty out of the thousands of combinations."

"Right, I told Jacob and Sam."

"He asked to see her," I whisper.

"What?" Dan'yel asks in shock.

"He knows she has a Goa'uld in her, and that she's here."

"We're not exposing that little boy to her," he says firmly, but still in a whisper.

"I know, of course not, but he knows things that he shouldn't know," I say.

"Yeah, we'll deal with this when he is growing at a normal rate," he says with a sigh.

It is the next day in the afternoon when the petri dish finally shows dead nanites. They draw his blood a few times after that just to make sure. And they expose him to the frequency for another 24 hours just to be sure. But the next day I am taking home with me a toddler. Developmentally, he will be close to my own daughter, even though he is more than a year younger.

I hear a scream in the night. I rush into Jacob's room. He stares at me with eyes of terror. "Goa'uld," he says.

Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. What exactly is in this little boy's brain?


	26. Nightmares

"Goodness, that one sure sleeps a lot," Anna says, looking at Jacob. He was attempting to crawl across the floor for a toy, and feel asleep mid-crawl. His body didn't even collapse onto the floor.

"Well, he sleeps a lot, but never for long," I say with a sigh.

"What do you mean?" she asks.

Suddenly Jacob lets out an ear piercing scream. This was way shorter than they usually are. Most of the time he can drift off for fifteen minutes, sometimes as much as an hour before it happens.

I rush over and scoop him up, "It's over," I tell him, "You're safe."

He sobs into my shoulder.

"It was a dream," I tell him. But that's not quite true. Whatever he just saw was real. To someone, at some point in history, that really and truly happened. We're not exactly sure why, but apparently this little baby is dealing with the memories of two Goa'uld. One by one in his dreams, all the murders his parents committed are being remembered.

"He has dreams like that all the time?" Anna asks.

I nod my head. I've calmed him down so much that he's fallen back asleep. I hate to move before he wakes back up.

"You've got to take him back in. Perhaps the tumor that was making him grow really fast is still in there. Maybe that is what is making him have all these dreams."

"I've taken him in. There is nothing they can do except offer him psychological counselling to deal with it," I murmur.

"No, he's just a baby, there has got to be some way where he gets sleep. Where he gets peace," she says.

I start to cry. Maybe it would have been better if we hadn't stopped the accelerated growth. Perhaps an older child would be better able to deal with this.

But that's probably not true. I don't think I could deal with the memories that are slowly coming out of his mind. I don't think being four or five would give him any advantage over being a baby. Perhaps it's even better that he's small. He can't possibly understand all the things that he is seeing. He can't even know what death is.

**One week later**

"Mommy!" Naima screams from the living room. Then I hear a choking sound. I rush in to see Jacob with his hands around her neck.

"Let go!" I scream, coming over and pulling him away. I pull Naima onto my lap, "Are you ok, sweetheart?" I ask.

She's crying, but I can tell that they are mostly scared tears. There aren't even marks on her neck, and she definitely breathing fine now.

"Why did you do that?" I ask Jacob.

He shrugs, "'Uman."

"What?" I ask.

"'Uman!" he shouts.

"You did this because she was a human?" I ask.

"Jacob, toy," Naima says, holding up the train in her hand.

"Jacob wanted your toy?" I ask.

She nods her head still sobbing.

"It's ok, baby girl," I assure her, kissing her hair, "Everything is going to be alright." But it's a lie. What are we going to do?

That night, as the kids are both in bed, we have what amounts to a SGC brain trust in our living room.

"We got to lock him up," Dan'yel says.

"He's an infant!" I protest.

"And infant who tried to kill our daughter," Dan'yel reminds me, while standing up to pace back and forth.

"I don't think we can put a baby in jail. I mean… I'm not sure that jailers could give Jacob what he needed," Janet points out.

"We could put him in jail with Sam, she'd take care of him. He's her kid," Jack points out.

"Or Amounet could kill him out of spite," Rothman points out.

"It's obvious what we have to do. This kid has to be taken care of by someone who has no young children. He may be violent, but he's still got the body of a one year old. I don't think he could do serious damage to an adult, or even a teenager," Sara says.

Jack smiles at her.

"Kind, but I can attest from my days babysitting in high school, that a one year old can damage a teenager," Janet says, "What about an isolation room? The nurses wouldn't have a problem taking care of a toddler. We could work out a rotation where adults go in and play with him, on guard for themselves of course. And he'd be under lock and key at all times."

"I hate that we have to do this," I say.

Dan'yel holds out his hands to me, and I stand up to go to him. He pulls me into a hug, and rubs my back.

"So are we in agreement, then?" General Hammond asks.

I nod my head, but I'm still buried in Dan'yel's shoulder, so I don't know what the rest of the room is saying. I look up, and I know that Jacob's fate is decided. He may well spend the rest of his life in a hospital on a military base getting progressively less human, and progressively more Goa'uld.


	27. Tok'ra

**Yipes! I entered my past two chapters in the wrong order. I now have it corrected, and I am very sorry for the confusion that the mistake caused.**

I still don't know a whole lot about this "cancer" that Jacob has, but I do know that it is nasty. They fight cancer with treatments that make him so weak he can barely move. When the treatment is this bad, how awful must the disease be?

But he isn't really getting better. He's getting sicker, all the time. I think he might finally be sick enough to get special permission to use the sarcophagus. At least, if he doesn't get in there soon I'm pretty sure that he is going to die.

I've told Sam, or at least tried to tell Sam. The monster who has her body seems to think that it is funny. And I know that under the laughing face, Sam is probably dying inside. I can't imagine what that would be like, to have no control over what your face looks like when you hear your father is dying.

I get a phone call as I sit by Jacob's bedside. "Excuse me," I say as I head into the hall.

"Sha'uri, Rothman had a dream about the Tok'ra. We have an address! I'm going to go and check it out!" Daniel says excitedly.

"Stay safe," is all I say, but inside my heart is doing cartwheels. Perhaps Sam will be cured.

"Is that about my daughter?" Jacob asks. As he finishes asking it, he starts coughing hard.

"Maybe," I say.

"You have to bring her home safe," he mutters weakly.

The better part of a day passes before I hear from Dan'yel again. "Sha'uri, they held us captive for a while. But I was pleading for Sam, and it turns out they were pretty interested in that. They were pretty excited about the chance to kill a Goa'uld by taking it out of someone. It's their favorite way to do it, because apparently they value the host."

"That sounds amazing."

"Right! She's in surgery right now. They give her about 80% odds. You think Sam would take that, right?"

"I think Sam would take 40% odds, Dan'yel. The thing she wants more than anything else in the whole world is to have her life back."

"Right… well, as great as it is that they are helping Sam, we haven't exactly made an alliance with the Tok'ra. You see, the thing that they want most in the universe is hosts, and since the SGC isn't quite willing to start sacrificing innocent people for the cause…"

"Dan'yel, what did Rothman say Jolinar's new host had?"

"Cancer," he replied quickly, and then he says more slowly, "I don't know, Sha'uri."

"Dan'yel, you know Jacob. Just like Sam would do anything to be around for her son, he would do anything to be around for his daughter."

"Sha'uri, this is a long shot. There are a lot of people I have to clear this by."

"I know, just give me a call when you know anything."

I head back into the room, and Jacob looks at me with a really tired expression on his face, "Any news?"

"Yes, they found someone who can do the surgery for Sam, they give her an 80% chance of coming out of it."

He flinches.

"I know it's not the best odds, but it's better than the chance she has without the surgery."

"I know," he says, lying deeper into his pillow, "But as a parent, you want your kids to live risk-free."

I expected a phone call to tell me whether my crazy idea was going to become a reality. I didn't expect my husband to show up with General Hammond.

"George," Jacob greets him. The two of them were old friends long ago. They fought in wars together, and I know from being around military people so long that there is no bond in the world as tight as war buddies.

"I didn't know you were this sick," Hammond says softly.

"I know, it's recent," Jacob says with a sigh, "How is my daughter?" I can tell by the worry in his eyes that this is more like the Air Force's normal way of delivering bad news than me showing up on his doorstep with a baby.

"She's fine, Jacob. She wanted to come down to see you, but she's still in recovery. Jacob, I just talked to your doctors, and… I got you approved for a procedure on base."

"These people have a cure for cancer?" Jacob asks in shock.

"They have a cure for everything," George says with a smile, "But there are some serious drawbacks."

"Which are?" Jacob asks.

"This machine is addictive. If you use it too often, it acts like a narcotic on your system. Also, I can't tell you where we got the technology from."

Sam comes up to stand next to me, and my first instinct is to flinch. I mean, she has been a Goa'uld for a really long time, and it felt just a little bit as if she might be escaping. But I feel bad as soon as I do it, because I'm sure she is aware of the reasons behind the action, and it was a pretty jerky thing to do.

"I'm selfish," she says suddenly.

"What?" I ask.

"Earth has found its most powerful ally ever. This ally brings me back from a state of worse than death. And then my dad gets cured of cancer. And right now I'm not grateful. I just want more."

"You saw him, then?" I ask. "Your son?"

"He… tried to throw a chair at me," she whispers.

"I thought all the furniture in his room was bolted down." At least, it was the last time I saw him a few days ago.

"It was," she sobs, "But that didn't stop him from trying."

I wrap my arm around her, "I'm so sorry, Sam."

"I gave birth to a monster. To a devil! I should have known I was going to. I mean, just look at who his father was! And he looks like him, doesn't he? He really looks like Apophis."

"No he doesn't," I say with a decisive shake of my head.

"Yes, he does," she says firmly.

"No, he looks like Apophis' host. Probably some poor Egyptian who was plucked out of the desert about 4000 years ago. That's who he looks like, and that's whose genes he has."

She nods. "I'm not so worried about the genes as the…"

"I know," I say, cutting her off.

"I never should have had him. I should have asked Janet to get rid of him," she says.

"You couldn't have known what he would be. You still can't know what he will be."


	28. Maternal Instint

**This story is out of order, and I'm not going to apologize. I had to rescue Sam's poor son from the room with the bolted down furniture. Poor baby! I don't have any excuse for why it's out of order. I just wrote myself into a corner. **

Dan'yel called me when I was in the lab, telling me that I had better get up into the briefing room as quickly as possible, and to bring with me a book we translated not too long ago. When I get there I hear General Hammond's angry verse screaming, "Just tell me how the hell an infant escaped from a secure room?"

"He didn't escape, sir, he disappeared," Janet explains.

"That doesn't make any more sense!" the infuriated General says.

I enter the room, and Dan'yel waves me over. I set the book in front of him. He flips around in it for a few seconds before he says, "Kheb, that's the word I was looking for. I think that the boy is in Kheb."

"What exactly is going on?" I ask, even though I am pretty sure that I already know.

Sam is sitting on a chair, and I can tell that she is just barely holding it together. "They… took my son."

"Who?" I ask.

Janet flicks a video screen so that it shows Jacob in his room. He is lying on his bed crying at a nightmare. Or really, the nightmares have become so constant that he doesn't even need to be sleeping for them to occur, so I don't know what you would call them. Suddenly a bright light, almost like how people draw stars, though not very much like a real star, appears in the room. The light has a female face though. It moves over to the boy, and cradles his head in her hands… or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them "rays".

He smiles at her, and I'm not entirely sure if I've ever seen the little boy smile before. Then suddenly, both she and the boy disappear.

"You say the child is on Kheb?" Teal'c asks.

"Yes, have you heard of it?" Dan'yel presses.

"It is a legend that my Master Bray'tac once told me*. I did not think it really existed. The Goa'uld fear and despise this place. At the end of their lives, the Jaffa can go there to help their souls find their way to eternity."

"Do you know where it is?" Dan'yel asks.

"No," Teal'c says.

"All I know is that Osiris once hid from Seth there," Dan'yel says with a sigh.

Tea'c's eyes brighten, "I know the location of the planet of which you speak."

"Sounds good, let's go, people," the General says.

Sam stays behind in her chair. It's only been a few weeks since she got the Goa'uld removed from her mind. She has not yet been cleared for active duty. I figured that they would have mercy on her and let her go on a rescue mission to retrieve her son, but it really doesn't look like that is going to be happening.

Teal'c suddenly kneels before her, and looks at her intensely for a few seconds. She meet his eyes, but doesn't say a word.

"I swear to you, Major Carter, that I will return your son to you."

"Thank you, Teal'c," she says, and tries to form her face into a ghost of a smile. Her mouth is rebelling against the action though, and it comes of looking a bit more like a grimace.

"I know that to be separated from one's progeny is painful," he says.

"You know?" she asks.

He doesn't say another word, but locks eyes with her for a few more seconds before he walks out of the door.

"Sam, why don't you come to Dan'yel and my quarters on base until we get news? You'll contact us there?" I ask the General. He gives us a nod.

I'm not sure if Sam was asleep, or was pretending to be asleep to avoid my trying to comfort her. Either way her whole body jumps when the phone rings, but she makes not motion to answer it. I know the phone call is meant for her, but I answer it anyway.

It's the General's voice, "You two had better make your way to the gate. SG-2 just radioed that SG-1 will be coming back through any minute now."

"And…" I say waiting for the real news. Even though I'm not sure I'm going to have the strength to deliver it, and I'm pretty sure that Sam is not going to have the strength to hear it.

"And they are bringing back the baby. That… alien light woman, she did something to the boy's brain. I'm not quite sure what it is, you'll have to come and find out."

"All right, we'll be up there soon, Sir."

"Sam," I say, lightly touching her shoulder, "We have to go to the gate room. They're coming back with your son."

She flips over toward me, with her eyes wet with tears, "They are bringing him back?"

"Yes, something to happened to him, so I don't know."

Sam cries harder, "She hurt my baby?"

"I don't know. Let's go and find out, ok?"

It's painful to watch her stand up. You can tell that it takes every ounce of energy that she has to heave herself off the bed. When she walks, it is more like shuffling, and you can tell that this takes everything she has.

By the time we make it to the gate room, the SG teams are already through.

Teal'c is holding Jacob in his arms. Both of them have huge grins on their faces, and Jacob is talking to him. Then the Jaffa reaches over, and actually tickles the little boy.

He lets out a shout of laughter.

Sam runs over to him, and takes the baby into her arms. "What's happening?"

"Oma Desala healed your son," Dan'yel says, "She blocked the Gou'ald part of his mind. He can't access it anymore. She's protecting him."

"He's safe?" she says with tears in her eyes.

"I told you that your son would be returned to you unharmed," Teal'c says.

Sam starts crying, and Jacob looks distressed. "It's ok, honey, Mommy is crying happy tears," she says.

"Ma!" Jacob says, flinging his little baby arms around her.

"That's right, Mommy has you at last. Oh, baby, I have waited so long," Sam says, holding him tight.

I make sure to position myself by Teal'c as we walk out of the gate room. "Teal'c, you mentioned that it hurts to be separated from your children. It kind of sounded like you spoke from experience."

I don't miss that the ears of most of his teammates are suddenly trained on the conversation, and I know that Teal'c doesn't miss this either.

"I have a son," he says.

"Where?" I ask.

"On Maldar. My wife and I had a pledge break** a few years ago, and I have not often seen him since."

"Pledge break, is that a word for divorce?" Dan'yel asks.

"It is similar in many ways. But simpler," Teal'c explains.

"So, your wife got custody?" Jack asks, "But you could visit him right? I don't know Jaffa laws, but I can't believe they would keep a man away from his son."

"I am allowed to visit my son on occasion," Teal'c replies.

"But you haven't, right? You haven't since you came here?" Jack asks in shock.

"No, and only rarely before that," Teal'c says.

"Why? He's your son. You obviously miss him, and I bet that he misses you too," Dan'yel says.

Teal'c is silent for so long that I begin to worry we must have offended him. Then slowly he says, "Dray'auc does not believe I am a good father. She has secured someone else to fulfill the role."

"He has a stepdad?" Jack asks.

Teal'c nods.

"Why doesn't she think you're a good dad?" Sam asks.

"She did not think I spent enough time with my son," Teal'c replies.

"So your solution is to spend no time with him?" Jack demands.

"When the pledge break occurred, Dray'auc told my son that I had died, a hero in battle. She then moved to another world to raise our son. Bray'tac checks in on them from time to time, and sends me reports to let me know that my son is well. When I visited him, I was introduced as Bra'tac's friend."

"And you're ok with all of this?" Jack asks.

"I do not have a choice in the matter," Teal'c replies.

"The hell you don't!" Jack says.

"Jack, I'm not sure we should be playing Judge Judy in the court of another species," Dan'yel cautions.

"A member of my team has had his son stolen from him. That is _not_ ok," Jack says, glancing at Dan'yel before he turns to Teal'c, "You should have told us right away, buddy. What planet are they on?'

"We're not going to storm an alien planet," Dan'yel protests.

"No of course not, but you are going to do some of that diplomacy magic stuff you're so good at, and work out joint custody for Teal'c," Jack says.

"How old is your son?" Sam asks. It's the first time she's spoken in this conversation. She was so absorbed in the return of her own son that she couldn't much worry about Teal'c's.

"He'll be eleven years old in 114 days," Teal'c replies.

***In the series it was Bra'tac who told this story. But for simplicity's sake, I cut Bra'tac out of this episode, so it has to be Teal'c. But it's an alternate reality version, and I don't think it is too much of a stretch to think that Bra'tac might have told this story to his student. I also simplified some of the Jaffa words in here, assuming that Teal'c would be a bit more Americanized in language than his master.**

****I have my own sneaky motives for changing this fact, but come on, Teal'c couldn't have possibly been on good terms with his wife at the beginning of the story. I mean, he leaves them without a word. And you can't tell me that was all about fighting the Gou'ald. Besides, the whole incident with the priestess seems to indicate that he was at least emotionally unfaithful to his wife while they were married. So you have to figure it wasn't the strongest marriage in the history of Jaffa.**


	29. Picnic

"Sha'uri, I'm so proud of you," Dan'yel says, tapping my knee as he drives. He's been repeating this a lot ever since I passed my GED.

"Come on, I have one degree, you have six," I say.

"Sha'uri, you've been on Earth for less than two years. In that time, you've had a baby, worked part time, and graduated from high school. Your work ethic is something to envy," he mutters.

"Says the man who substitutes sleep with coffee. Are you ever going to tell me where we are going?"

"I told you," he says with a grin, "It's a surprise!"

We pull up to the park, and I see all of what seems like half of the SGC under a picnic shelter. There are balloons, and food, and a banner which reads, "CONGRATULATIONS SHA'URI".

"What is this?" I ask.

Dan'yel smiles, "You really think I wouldn't throw my wife a graduation party?"

"From what I understand about American culture, the graduation party serves mostly as a way to mark an adolescent passage toward independence," I say.

"Careful, honey, you're starting to sound a little bit like an anthropologist."

"Right, I've been thinking about that," I say, getting out of my car and pulling Naima out of her car seat.

"What?" he asks, jumping out of his side of the car and walking over to my side.

"I've been considering going to college with an anthropologist major," I say.

"Are you kidding?" he says giving me a hug.

"I know college is really expensive, so if you'd rather I just keep working for you…"

"No, I love the idea of you getting a degree. And especially a degree in my field," he says. By now we've walked over the crowd. "Can I tell them?" he asks.

I nod.

"Sha'uri is going to college!" he exclaims.

"That's great. What are you majoring in?" Sam asks.

"Anthropology," my husband proclaims proudly.

"You do know that there are other careers out there, Sha'uri? Careers which are much less nerdy?" Jack says.

"I do," I say, "But I really like this stuff."

"Oh, we almost forgot the hat," Jack says, walking forward and putting the strange flat hat that they wear at graduations on my head.

"Do I really have to wear this?" I ask.

"Of course you do; you graduated," he says.

"That doesn't seem like a good enough reason," I say.

"I'm a Colonel," he says, squinting his eyes at me.

"All right, I'll let you think you're in charge," I say, adjusting the hat.

"I _am_ in charge," he says.

"We create that illusion, don't we?" Sam asks, coming up and giving me a hug.

There has been a lot of planning about how to get Teal'c's son back, but nothing has been done yet. At the picnic, I watch him hold Jacob in his arms. Several other people offer to "take the baby off his hands so he can eat". Others begged for a chance to hold him. Sam came over a couple of times, offering to hold him. Jacob himself is desperately trying to wiggle out of Teal'c arms onto the floor with the rest of the kids.

Naima has been passed from hand to hand, I think pretty much everyone has held her.

I sit down next to Teal'c. "How are you?"

He doesn't answer.

"You're right, that's a stupid Earth question. We as aliens know that earthlings don't actually expect an answer when they say that. They just use it to break the silence. And breaking silence has no worth in and of itself."

"Indeed," he says.

"But I'm not from Earth, and I meant it. What's going on?"

He is silent for a bit longer, but that doesn't bother me, "Are you referring to my reluctance to relinquish the infant?"

I nod.

"I am attempting to establish a bond with MajorCarter's offspring."

"Right, I got that. But I think there is something else going on here. Is this about your son?" I ask. It's hard to have a conversation with a Jaffa, because there are no facial expressions to give me clues.

"The people of Earth think that I made a mistake with my son," he says.

"No, they just want to help you get close to him. They know you love them, and they don't want you to have to be without him, because there is pain in that."

He is silent.

"Is there something else that is going on?" I ask.

"MajorCarter is attempting to raise her son by herself," he says.

"Well, she has a lot of people to support and help her," I say.

"I would like to offer my services as the father of her child. Do you think she would be receptive to this proposition?"

If only I had the face of a Jaffa right now. Is he serious? I mean, it's sweet. If you can call a Jaffa sweet. But… it's also really weird. How can I go about this diplomatically? Because I really don't want him to ask Sam and have her have to figure out how to turn him down. "Well," I hedge, "I think Sam probably wants to wait until she finds someone who loves her, and whom she loves, as well as is willing to help her raise a child."

And there seems to actually be an expression on his face. A sad heartbroken expression. "And you do not think I could be this for her?"

"You… have romantic feelings for Sam?"

He looks at her in the distance, laughing at something Sara said. "Indeed."

"Does that work? I mean the whole Jaffa/human thing?" I ask nervously.

"It is irrelevant in romance and reproduction."

"Ok, then, well, I think you're going to have to take this slow. Right now, she thinks of you as someone she works with. You're going to have to drop her little hints in order to get you thinking of you as a man… er… Jaffa… You know what I mean."

He nods his head.

"Do you want me to take the baby?" I offer again.

"I am bonding with the infant," he replies firmly.

"Ok, maybe you could… talk to him a little," I say, reaching over and tickling Jacob's belly.

As I walk way I hear him saying, "Child, do you enjoy sensory input on your abdomen? I shall repeat this procedure." Then I hear Jacob giggle.

I can't help but laugh as I walk away. It's not exactly baby talk, but the kid is going to have a huge vocabulary if Teal'c does establish his bond.

And the whole Teal'c/Sam thing sort of makes sense after I think about it. I mean, he is for the most part her type. He's big and strong, with a dark military past. He doesn't talk about emotions. He has male chauvinistic attitudes, but always treats individual women he meets well. Trying to curry her son's favor would probably count as emotional manipulation. He's not a stalker, but seven out of eight isn't bad. Maybe, this is going to work.

**Ok, so did I surprise anyone? It's possibly the most unique paring of all. But when I finally thought about it was logical. I just had to get the Sam/Jack option off the table before I could consider it.**


	30. Negotations

I've finally had to give up carrying Namia in the baby carrier, even for part of the day. It only takes a half hour for my back to start aching. So Naima has been spending a large portion of her days (except when I am in class) on the floor of Dan'yel's lab. At first, he objected, but he hasn't said anything about it in months.

Dan'yel is moving from one book to another as he translates. The books are on separate tables, and as usual my husband doesn't actually look where he is going. He trips over Naima's toys, and swears - in three languages, one of which our daughter understands.

"Dan'yel," I say softly, picking up the toys.

"Does she have to be here all this time?" he shouts in frustration.

"She's our daughter," I say.

"I know, and when she was a baby this was fine. You could tie her up and carry her around. Now, she's big, and this is a workplace, and she's underfoot all the time."

"Ok, I get it! You need a break," I say, scooping Naima up. "I'll take her to day care."

"Right, a break is all I need," he mutters.

"Dan'yel?" I ask, but he waves me away. I'm getting the feeling that Dan'yel could probably use a break from me as well as Naima. I shoulder her diaper bag, and head to Sam's lab. If she's at the right level of frustration with her work she's going to want to talk to me about what's wrong. Otherwise, Naima and I can go home, and I work on my college applications.

"Hey, Sam," I say. My eye catches on the largest flower bouquet I have ever seen. "Wow, Sam, nice flowers."

"What do they mean?" she says, practically pouncing on me.

"I think it means that someone likes you," I offer with a shrug.

"They're from Teal'c. Maybe he just doesn't know what flowers mean on Earth? Do you know of any Jaffa flower traditions? Maybe I should ask Daniel."

"I told the man to go slow. This is the opposite of slow!"

"What you knew about this?" she asks in horror.

"He mentioned it at the picnic. His plan was to hold Jacob until both of you fell in love with him."

"Well, flowers are better than that," she says, "But he's Teal'c."

"And your point would be?" I prompt.

"We're not even the same species."

"Yeah, that was my first concern as well. He said that it isn't an issue."

"We're on the same team."

"Right, but there aren't any rules against it. And I know that both of you would be professional about it."

"But its Teal'c," she repeats.

"I know."

She pauses, "He was trying to befriend my son?"

"Yeah, he was going to offer to serve as father for your offspring."

"Well that is sweet," she says.

"Yep."

"And weird."

"For sure," I say.

"This idea is sounding a little less crazy," she says.

A feel a grin covering my face.

"But he left his wife and son. Or at least allowed her to leave him."

"Yes, his job is always going to come first. Just like it will with you."

A grin comes to her face. "This might actually work."

Sometimes when you take your mind off of a problem you have been thinking about, everything becomes clear to you. I know what Dan'yel's real problem is. And I know that this is one of the times I have to drop Naima off in day care.

"Dan'yel," I say as I return.

"Sorry about before, Sha'uri," he mutters, still absorbed in the work. I walk over and shut his book. I know that fills him with silent fury, but I also know that it is the only way I am going to get his full and undivided attention.

"We need to talk about it," I say.

He nods.

"We decided to raise this kid with a mix of our two cultures. But we live in America, and let's be honest, your culture won. She watches Disney movies, and she sleeps in a crib instead of our bed. The only thing I got was her using the bathroom as a baby. And that she stays with us at work. I know you don't want that anymore. And I realized I never told you why I want her here with us. It's not just to make things easier."

He looks into my eyes intensely.

"If we she can't come here anymore I get either my husband or my baby for the next few years. I don't get both. I can't do that. I can't choose between my family."

"You'd still have us both at night," he says.

"And I get that halfway thing, I know that is how your country works. But I'm not from here. I can't do it halfway. It's bad enough that you are gone when you go on missions. And we're going to have to send our daughter to school one day. I'm already giving up way more time with you than we would if we lived on Abydos. You can't expect me to give it all up. At some point you have to give a little too."

He doesn't say a word, but pulls me into a tight hug.

"So this means?" I ask.

"Tomorrow you can bring our daughter back. This is where she belongs."

"Thank you," I say, kissing him, "And I was thinking a play pen to contain the toddlerness."

"That would help," he says.


	31. Ma'chello

"You're in the infirmary again," I scold my husband, "I thought we agreed you were going to take a break from getting injured."

"I will try in the future, fair maiden," he replies.

"Fair maiden? What happened to him?" I ask, turning to Janet.

"He was on an alien planet, and he touched a device which delivered a high level electric shock," she replies, "He seems to be fine now. He's tired, and I don't want him driving."

"Daniel, are you ok?"

"Of course," he says.

"Because you haven't even said hello to your daughter," I say.

He looks at Naima and says, "Hi."

"You don't want to hold her?" I ask.

"I am afraid that I am late for a briefing late for a briefing," he replies. I nod my head. My stomach flips, I thought we had the whole baby on base thing figured out.

"Who is this?" I ask, passing an old man lying in another bed in the infirmary.

"That is the old man who was holding the device with Daniel. He also got shocked; it doesn't look like he is going to make it."

I feel something strange as I walk past the man, but I'm not sure what it is.

"Janet, did Dan'yel come back here? He never went back to his office after the briefing," I say.

"No, did you check with someone at the briefing?"

"That was going to be my next stop," I say.

"Sha'uri," I hear the old man whisper hoarsely.

"How do you know my name?" I ask.

He holds out his hands. He's asking for Naima. It's the exact same motion my husband makes every time he's sick or injured. Whenever he is worried that he almost lost his life, the first thing he wants to do is get a hold of the baby.

"Why are my hands so stiff," he asks. squinting.

"Dan'yel?" I ask.

"What?" he says.

"Do you have a mirror Janet?" I ask.

She hands me a shiny metal bedpan, and I hand it to my husband. His hands are shaking slightly before he sees his face in it, but they are quacking violently when he does.

"What did he do to me?" he asks.

"It's going to be ok, Dan'yel," I assure him. "I have to go"

He raises an eyebrow in a question, "Your body is missing in action."

I don't go to someone at the briefing. I don't have time for it. I go directly to the guard station, and see that Dan'yel checked out of the mountain half an hour ago. I run home. He's not there. Now is the time to go to the General. We have to find my husband.

When I arrive at the General's office, Janet is already there.

"Well, I can't tell you the method used to do it, General, but I can tell you that our personality, our memory, our conscious selves are derived from unique networks of neurons in the cerebral cortex. Somehow, Daniel's networks were remapped onto the old man's by that alien device," she says.

"So this could be a one-way deal, right? We don't know that it went both ways. Daniel could still be Daniel," Jack says.

"I don't think so. Dan'yel was acting weird before, and he's not in his lab or the house," I say. Naima struggles in my arms to get down. I set her on the briefing room floor.

"I think we should go back to Machello's room," Sam says.

"We need to find the person who stole my husband's body," I say.

"Agreed, we'll get the police looking for him. We'll send some people back to study this device, and Dr. Fraiser, do you think you'd be able to switch them back?" the General asks.

Janet's face is pale. I feel sorry for her being asked for miracles every time she comes to work, "This is way out of my line of expertise, sir. But I'll look into finding some experts."

"He didn't take the car, so he might be close to base," I say hopefully. "I'll be looking for him."

As I pass through the corridors I suddenly remember something. "Naima, Daddy skipped breakfast this morning, didn't he?" I ask her.

There is only one restaurant within walking distance of the base. A restaurant that Dan'yel hates, but I don't think that is going to be a factor. I hail a taxi.

There he is. Eating a hamburger, and talking to someone I don't know. Judging by the clothes, probably a homeless person.

I give Jack a quick call, and then I walk into the dinner, and stand before his table.

"Dan'yel," I say.

"Hi," the other man says, "I'm Fred, he told me his name was Machello."

"That's probably right," I say.

"Are you going to take him to the loony bin or something, because the man may be nuts, but he's a good guy," Fred says.

"No, I'm going to take him home, he's my husband," I say.

Fred's eyes bulge, "You escaped from _her_, man? You _must_ be crazy."

"I will not go back, it is impossible," Machello firmly states.

"Oh, I have seen a lot of impossible things happen," I repeat.

"You're going to make me go back while holding an infant?" he says with a laugh.

"You have the choice of going back with your daughter and I, or waiting for…" police sirens chime in with perfect timing. Machello tries to take off, but there is only one door out of the diner. Two police officers are there when he reaches it, and put him in handcuffs. I grab a taxi, and rush back to the base.

When I get to the infirmary, Daniel is awake again. He gives me a smile, and I lean forward to give him a kiss. Naima joins in with a rather noisy kiss which falls in the air somewhere around his chest. They drag Ma'chello in.

"Reverse what you've done to my people," Hammond demands.

"I cannot do what is impossible," he says with what can only be described a smirk on his face.

"Then you won't cooperate?" Hammond asks.

"On the contrary, I am telling you the truth. It is not possible," he says.

"Why not?" Sam asks.

"In simplest terms, the device retains a memory of every transference. For the very reason you are asking me, I designed it so that it encrypts the transference, blocking any reversal," he says. Which means that my husband is still stuck in the body of a dying man.

They drag Machello off to the brig, and return with him a few hours later. Sam practically throws him into a chair near my husband.

"I believe you two have met," she snarls.

"Well, from what I can see, you're looking good," Dan'yel says. He's picking up more and more of Jack's sense of humor as time goes by. I suppose there are worse people for my husband to copy.

"What would you like me to say? I am sorry? That I wish I could undo it? I do not," Machello mocks.

"Why?" my husband asks in a voice that isn't far from pleading.

"Why? Because I earned it. That is why. I earned it because I sacrificed my life for you and your people. The least you could do was compensate me with another," he says bitterly.

"What right do you have to judge the value of my life?" he asks.

"I have suffered more than anyone should suffer in a lifetime. For fifty years I fought against the Goa'uld. Then I was betrayed by my wife, whom they secretly turned into a host."

"Well, my wife and baby are right here. But her brother was turned into a host. So was Sam, so was another friend of mine."

"At least you still have a planet. And friends. Two billion of my people died rather than surrender me to the Goa'uld."

"You have made great sacrifices. We owe you gratitude. But still it does not give you the right to take another's life."

"If you had the technology, you would do the same."

"No, I wouldn't. Because then I would become no better than the Goa'uld."

"I am not a Goa'uld. I hate the Goa'uld," Machello rants angrily.

"The Goa'uld use hosts because they think they are better than humans. Because they believe they deserve it. You're a Goa'uld, Machello. I am nothing but a host to you."

"I am not a Goa'uld," he says, a bit more weekly.

"My family needs me!" Dan'yel demands, with tears running down his face. The flat line and loud sound goes off. The last time I heard it, Jack thought Cassie might be dying. Now, I know this sound must have to do with Dan'yel. Janet moves me gently aside, and starts pressing on his chest in a certain rhythm. Suddenly the sound goes from the alarm to the gentle and steady beeping. I feel Jack, who currently looks like Teal'c due to some accidental body switching, come around my side, and touch my shoulder reassuringly. I lean in to him.

"If I could trade places with him again, I would. But unfortunately, I am the only one who cannot," Machello says, touched.

"Wait a minute. You're the_ only_ one who can't?" Sam says. At his nod, I know that Sam has some sort of a plan to save my husband.

She comes back a little later with the machine that caused my husband to switch places with him in the first place.

"All right, it's a little complicated, so I need you to do exactly as I say. We're going to have to play a little musical chairs with your bodies. First, Colonel, you and Machello will switch." He pulls a bit away from me, and gives her a doubtful look, "Trust me, Colonel," she prompts.

They each grab one of the panels, and a few seconds later she says, "Colonel?"

"I'm here," Dan'yel's body says.

"Now you and Daniel should switch," she instructs.

"Whoa! Whoa, what a dream. What happened?" O'Neill's body asks, but I think it is my husband asking.

"I don't have time to explain right now, Daniel. Just bear with me," Sam says.

"Okay," he says. I walk over by him, and he gives me a smile, although he still looks pretty confused.

Next, Machello and Teal'c make the transfer. Then Jack taps Dan'yel's shoulder, "Our turn," he says, moving forward to grab the handles.

"I'm back," Dan'yel says in awe.

Dan'yel walks over to Machello with a serious look on his face.

"Thank you for my holiday," Machello says weekly. The heart monitor begins to make the sound again. Ma'chello just died, and my husband was in that body five minutes ago.

"I almost lost you," I say.

"I know," he says, taking Naima from me and planting a kiss on her cheek.

"He stole your body," I say. I don't think Dan'yel is getting what it's like to see your spouse in danger all of the time. Sometimes I think that the other wives, who have no idea how crazy dangerous their husband's jobs are, are the lucky ones.

"I know," he says, giving me a hug. Then he turns to the General, "Permission to take the afternoon off, sir?"

"Oh, I want to check you out first," Janet says.

"And I want to make sure you are really you. I wouldn't want you traipsing all over town again," Jack says.

"It's him, and he's fine," I say. I live the kind of life where it takes a miracle to make my husband be all right.


	32. Event

This is the fourth time that Dan'yel has traveled with Teal'c to make a deal with his ex-wife. Divorce sucks, and apparently it sucks more when there is a cultural barrier. I have never worried about Dan'yel and I getting a divorce, but let me assure you, after seeing what this is like for Teal'c I would do anything in my power to prevent a divorce from happening.

This time is different though. Usually they come back looking exhausted, and carrying the trunks of "treasure" that Dan'yel describes as "child support", because Dra'yac has once again rejected Teal'c's offer of goods in exchange for joint custody. This time however, Teal'c comes back with a little boy's hand in his.

I run up to my husband, "You did it!" I exclaim. I turn to the little boy, "Hello Ry'ac, I'm Sha'uri, welcome to Earth."

"My daddy isn't dead!" he exclaims. Apparently he is still adjusting to the idea. I still can't believe she would lie to her son about his father being dead. There is enough real death in the world that I see no reason to pretend there is more than there really is.

"No, he isn't," Dan'yel assures him.

"So how long is he staying for?" I ask.

"Dra'yac finally agreed to a month here, and a month there. It's a bit of a cheat, since the months are longer on her planet. It amounts to Teal'c having him for between 28-31 days, and Dray'ac having him for 46, but we didn't exactly expect equal custody going in."

"That's great! Hey, Teal'c you know my offer to babysit Ry'ac any time, including whenever you go off world still stands."

"That is well, Sha'uri Jackson, would tonight be a convenient time for you?" Teal'c asks.

"Ah sure…you have a mission?" I ask turning to my husband confused.

"No," he says looking at Teal'c just as confused as I am. Actually, he's a little bit angry as well as confused. He just spent a whole bunch of time getting Teal'c access to his son, and apparently Teal'c doesn't want to spend his first night with him.

"I scheduled an event previous to the receiving of my son," he explains.

"Ah," the poor man probably didn't think that this would be the time he actually got to bring him home, "I'm sure that whoever your 'event' is with wouldn't mind you rescheduling," I assure him.

"I do not wish to reschedule the event. It has in fact been rescheduled on multiple occasions by the other party," he says gruffly.

"Ok, no problem, after all, you have the rest of the month with him," I say with a shrug.

"Would you also be willing to provide care for Jacob Carter?" he asks.

My eyes bulge, "Is this 'event' a date with Sam?" I ask.

Ry'ac turns to his father with a question in his yes, "Are you going to find me a new Mother like how Mom found me a new father?"

Crap, Teal'c probably didn't want the kid to know, since this was his first date.

"It's way too early for that," Dan'yel offers.

"I am attempting to woo a new wife for myself," Teal'c says stoically. He then begins to walk the child toward the infirmary.

"Well, that saves me from having to give him an intention speech," Dan'yel says.

"You're not Sam's father," I remind him.

"I'm sure Jacob wouldn't mind me doing the honors," Dan'yel says.

"I'm not so sure. He's far scarier than you. In fact, I bet Jacob would rather that Jack or General Hammond gave Teal'c the speech."

"I don't suppose it really matters since no one is going to scare Teal'c," Dan'yel says.

"Nope, and I'm not in the least bit worried that he is going to hurt her," I say.

"You've got that right," Dan'yel says with a sigh.

Dan'yel and I make a good team. I knew that before, but I didn't know it so well until there were three children under foot. Right now Dan'yel is playing a word game with Ray'ac in his native language. I'm not sure exactly what the game involves, but I do know that it has both of them giggling. He's also putting Jacob down for bed, so he's standing and swaying back and forth. Jacob is really tired, but not quite willing to give into sleep. He's fighting off the drossiness with little whining cries every now and again that Dan'yel responds to by tapping his back.

I've got Naima tied up in the baby carrier on my chest as I clean up the kitchen after the disaster that is dinner with two toddlers and a child. Spaghetti was a bad choice. It stains.

"This one's out," Dan'yel whispers taking Jacob to the nursery to lay him down. As he returns he goes to take Namia from my arms.

I look into his eyes in the moment that he looks at his sleeping daughter. I gasp at the love I see in them.

"Dan'yel," I say.

His eyes look up at mine, and I see the same intense kind of love there.

"I think it's time to give Naima a sister or a brother," I whisper.

He touches her hair, "She's still pretty young," he says doubtfully.

"She'll be almost a year older by the time the baby comes," I remind him, "And that's only if…well, it can take some time you know."

He nods his head, "We'll think about it."

He starts to take her out of my arms, but I shake my head. "I'll go put her down."

He takes the wash cloth out of my hand, and continues to clean the kitchen. I also hear the word game between Ry'ac begin again.

Suddenly the phone rings, and both of the younger children burst into loud wails. I carry Naima into the nursery, and grab Jacob. Carrying both of them is too much, so I set Naima on the floor as I lift Jacob out of the crib. Then I sit on the rocking chair, and invite both of them onto my lap. One of them sits on each knee, and they burry their faces against me. I rock and pat them, but I haven't got them completely calmed down before Dan'yel enters the nursery.

His face is pale, and I can tell that something very serious happened. "We have to go to the SGC."

"Why?"

"Sam's house got broken into. One of the neighbors called the police, and they called Sam on the date. They didn't take anything, and the only room they went into was Jacob's."

"What?" I ask in horror.

"Someone tried to kidnap him," Dan'yel says grabbing Naima's diaper bag (in America you call bags filled with the things that children need 'diaper bags' even when they do not contain any actual diapers), and throwing it over one shoulder, and balancing Jacob on his other hip.

My stomach sinks. What if Sam and Teal'c hadn't gone on a date tonight? I'm pretty sure that Sam could fight off a lot of people, but they would have known who Sam was. They wouldn't have come unprepared. Right now this little child could be the subject of some experiments.

"Who do they think did it? Was it the same people that took me?" I ask as we head out of the nursery.

"We took that whole organization apart, from the top down," Dan'yel protests.

"Maybe the NID rebuilt itself," I suggest, "Come on Ry'ac, we're going back to the base. I bet your Daddy is going to meet us there," I say offering him a smile, and my hand.

"Well the organization did, but it couldn't have gone rouge again, could it have?" he asks.

"The break in, did it look like a professional or an amateur did it?" I ask.

"It definitely looked professional," he says with a sigh.

Teal'c and Sam are both waiting for us at the gate of the SGC. Sam takes her son into her arms, and squeezes him so tight that he makes a gasping sound. Her only response is covering his face with kisses.

Teal'c says, "Are you well, my son?"

To which Ry'ac replies, "Yes, Father."

Sam gives him a look of pure concern. Teal'c doesn't fail to notice it. He may not do much by way of facial expressions or body language, but he can certainly read them. He picks the boy up, and hugs him tight.

"You're squishing me, Father," he protests.

Teal'c releases him from the squeeze, but keeps him in his arms. Ry'ac pulls away for a few seconds, it is clear that he is not used to this kind of affection from his father. Perhaps from no one if all Jaffa are like Teal'c. Then suddenly he snuggles his body against his father's. Teal'c closes his eyes and a look of pure pleasure crosses his face.

It brings tears to my eyes.

"I am glad you are unharmed," Teal'c mutters into the boy's head.

"Do we know who did this?" I ask Sam.

She shakes her head, "The Colonel is at my house right now, with the investigation team. I probably should have stayed, but…"

"You're place is with your son right now," I assure her.

She nods her head, holding him closer to her.

"We will find who did this," Dan'yel assures her. Then he turns to me, "Are you ok? I'm going to go help Jack."

I nod my head.

"I am going to assist you, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c says. Then he turns to his son, "If you do not mind staying with Samantha Carter and Sha'uri Jackson."

"I am fine, Father," he boy says.

"I will return to you son," he says.

As Teal'c and Dan'yel walk away I see Ry'ac pulls on Sam shirt.

"I like Earth Daddy better than Daddy before he died," he says.

Sam smiles and ruffles his hair.

"Are you the one who is going to marry my Father?" he asks her looking up at her.

Sam's mouth is hanging wide open, and it is clear she has no idea what to say.

"I hope so," Ry'ac adds looking at Jacob, "because I've always wanted a brother."

We decide to stay at the SGC that night, because they have higher security. There are some guards posted outside of Sam's quarters where she, Jacob, and Ry'ac are staying. They offered some guards of Naima and I, but I didn't feel it was necessary considering she wasn't the one targeted for kidnapping.

It is far past the middle of the night when I hear a key in the door. I know my husband is the only one with the key, but based on recent events I can't be too cautious. I stand up beside my bed, and grab one of my husband's ever present books for attack.

Dan'yel opens the door, and smiles at my precaution.

"Did you find out anything?" I ask.

"Yes, we did. You're right it is the same people that kidnapped you. The NID. Luckily, since we did a pretty good job of clearing house after you were kidnapped, they were pretty new, and a little bit clumsy. They left some clues, which made it pretty easy to find them. We got quite a few tonight already, and there are some more Airman working on cleaning house. We should be safe by morning," he says.

"Good," I say setting the book down, and crawling back into bed.

He strips down to his underwear and slides in next to me. He leans over to give me a kiss goodnight. But he pauses a second, not immediately laying down. I sit up to look at him.

"You're tired, we should talk about this another time," he says.

"Now you've got me interested. You'd better tell me about whatever it is now," I say fighting back a yawn.

"You're right, I want Naima to have a sibling," he says.

I grin, and move my body on top of his before capturing his mouth in a kiss. He enjoys the kiss, and the closeness of our bodies for a long moment before he pushes me away.

"Not here," he whispers.

"Why not?" I ask.

"Because we're on base, and our daughter is in the room," he says.

"But she's asleep, and the door is locked," I protest.

He giggles, "I love your sense of adventure, but we're going to have to wait until tomorrow." He rolls me off of him and lands on his side. Then he pulls me close to him, tucking my head under his chin. I feel that his body is tense, and that his mind is still on the kidnapping. I'm sure that if someone came through the door right now they would be in trouble. But that is always true, my husband is always just a little bit on guard.

"I'm sorry you had to fall in love with such a dangerous man," he says.

"I'm not," I assure him, and his body relaxes just the slightest bit.


	33. College

I park my car in the parking lot of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Extension Office. It's eleven miles from base, and it's the first time that I actually drove it by myself. I got my driver's license a few weeks ago, and have driven to my friend's houses and then grocery store since then. Daniel (I'm trying to get rid of my accent before I go to school, I will not call him Dan'yel anymore) let me drive here a few time so I'd know the way.

He's a little nervous about me going to school, and I'm not sure why. But all the schooling I've done so far has been in paper and pencil tests. I don't think my accent is quite right, and I don't think that I use the right words all the time. People at the SGC don't really care about your wording, they just care what you say. I'm not sure that I'll be able to say the same about the people I am going to go to school with. Most of them will be barely older than children.

I grab my backpack. It's filled with all sorts of school supplies, far more than I actually need, but Dan'yel – Daniel – knows how much I like school supplies. Today is my only class that actually has to do with archeology. Apparently you have to take a lot of classes reviewing the stuff you should have learned about in high school. I am taking a math, a writing class, and a class to learn a language called Latin. Latin is close to one of the languages that Daniel found on a rock of the four races. It will be useful when I become my husband's partner instead of just his assistant-his secretary.

"You are taking a class on anthropology," Professor Manes, who was in his thirties with large glasses and mismatched socks, begins the class by saying. "Anthropology is the study of humankind - who we are and what we do. But there are lots of areas of study which that could be said for. How is anthropology different from psychology or sociology or philosophy or any of the other ways we study humankind?"

"Anthropology focuses on the context," I explain. All eyes are suddenly on me. Damn, that was a rhetorical question, Daniel warned me about those.

"A lecture is different from a conversation," he'd warned me.

"I'm sorry," I mutter.

"Don't be," the professor says with a laugh. "I have half a mind to invite you up here to finish the lecture!" I blush hard.

"She's right, anthropologists look at the context, what is going around the person," he continues with the lecture. I scribble furious notes, but to be honest, this isn't too difficult. I mean, you listen to my husband's rants for a couple of years, and you have this covered.

After the class, a girl in her early twenties comes up to me. "I'm guessing by your answer that you're an anthropology major," she says with a smile.

"Yeah, sorry about that," I say, shoving a notebook into my bag. "My husband has one of his doctorates in anthropology, so…"

"No, that was awesome," she says. "Listen, there aren't that many anthropology students. We're going to be together for four years, and I can already tell that you are the best among us. A few of us are going for a drink, you want to come?"

"Drink… at the water fountain?" I ask. That doesn't make sense. At the SGC, people don't go to the water fountain in groups.

She laughs, "No, like alcohol, beer," she says.

"Right vipie," I mutter, "I'm sorry. I'm not from America. I still misunderstand sometimes."

"That's cool, where are you from?" she asks as she starts walking. I follow to continue the conversation, but I know I can't go with her.

"Egypt. But I can't have a drink with you, I'm still nursing, for now*," I say.

"Oh, you have a baby?" she says with a grin.

"She's closer to two, but yeah," I say.

"Well you don't have to drink, you could have water or pop," she says.

"Naima is in day care. I hate having her here," I say.

"It's up to you. But I'd really like you on our team for the next four years," she says, indicating a few other friends standing there.

"Just let me give my husband a call," I say.

I flip open the portable phone he bought me when we decided I was going to go to college. No matter how completely he takes apart the NID, he is still afraid that I am going to get kidnapped. The phone, even if it's off, would help them find me.

I press the one button I need to call my husband.

"How did your first class go?" he asks.

"Great, there are some people wanting to go for drinks," I say.

"Awesome! You've got a couple of hours before your next class, go for it!"

"I was going to go home and check on Naima," I say. I don't want to bring up the great day care debate again.

"Sha'uri, baby girl is right here," he says.

"What?" I figured he'd drop that baby off in day care the minute I left.

"Honey, I am going to keep her with me when you're at school. I've got it covered. Go have fun."

"Ok, I love you," I say.

"You, too," he assures me. I hang up.

"You're coming?" the girl asks.

"Yeah," I say.

"I'm Aimee," she says, putting out her hand.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Sha'uri."

-0-0-0-

As I walk down the corridor of the SGC, I hear the giggling of my daughter coming from my husband's office.

As I come around the corner I see her sitting on the table, within the firm grasp of her father. Dan'y… Daniel is reading to her in Goa'uld from a tablet before him. It's a story about a rather bloody battle, but it's being told with the cadence of a fairy tale.

"You do realize she probably understands that," I say.

"One can hope," he says to me, before picking up Naima and handing her to me, "Mommy is here!" he says giving me a kiss.

I pick up my daughter. "Did you miss me?" I ask, she just stares at me. "Were you a good girl for Daddy?" She nods her head.

"She was an angel," Daniel says.

"Milk," Naima whines.

"Ok, honey," I say, taking her to the couch. As she nurses, I look at my husband. I start talking in Goa'uld so the little girl won't understand it. "I think we need to get serious about weaning."

He looks surprised.

"She _is_ two. It would increase our chances of having another baby. It would also make it easier on you while I'm not here."

"If that's what you want to do," he says, "But we were fine while you were gone."

I wipe some bangs away from my daughter's face, "I can't imagine how much you are taking on while I'm going to school. Maybe it's too much…" I stammer.

"Seriously? I watched her by myself for five hours today. You watch her for _days_ whenever I'm on a mission. We're fine."

"I missed you," I say.

"Tomorrow you just have one class, and then you can come and hang out with us," he says.

"Right, and I'll make up the hours I lost today," I agree.

"You were spending a little bit of time with your friends, honey; you can't feel guilt about that," he says, sitting down next to me.

"All done," Naima says, standing up on my lap. She moves over to hold Daniel's face between two chubby hands, "Daddy sang. Silly, Silly!"

"But Daddy doesn't sing," I say, looking at my husband.

"Silly song!" she insists pushing his face together.

"Not in front of anyone over the age of five," he says conspiratorially to her.

"Oh, come on," I plead.

"I have some translating to do," he mutters, standing up.

"Right, and I do, too," I say as I try to deposit Namia in the play pen.

"Book! Book!" she demands. I pull a few of her books off the shelf, and hand them to her.

***Like many ancient civilizations Egyptians nursed for two or three years. The 'for now' has to do with the ongoing discussion of baby number two. **


	34. Date

"For many of you, this is your very first college paper. For others, it is your first anthropology paper. Either way, most of your papers represented dismal failures. Don't be discouraged! If you could all already write wonderful anthropology papers, there would be no sense in you taking my class! You're here to learn, and we learn more from failure than from success! That being said, they do count for a grade, so many of you must try to do better on your next one," Professor Manes says as he passes out our first paper.

He lays the paper face down in front of me, and suddenly I find myself very nervous. This is my first college paper, and I'm really not sure that I did well on it at all. My English is still a little shaky. I wish I had taken Daniel up on his offer to read if over before I handed it in. But I had this firm determination to do it all by myself.

I flip the paper over, "A+" it says. I sing the alphabet song quickly in my head to make sure that I still remember them in the correct order. No, A is definitely the good one. I start looking through for the places where there are red pen. There are a lot of them, and a few of them are corrections of grammar, but most of them are either complementing or expanding on a thought.

Wow! I can't wait to tell Daniel. I find myself suddenly glad that this is the Wednesday class. Every Monday a group of four or five of us go out for either drinks or coffee after class, but on Wednesdays, I usually dart home to spend three hours with Daniel and Naima in the office before I have to head back for my afternoon math class. I'm glad, because I can't wait to see Daniel's face about this grade.

"All right, class dismissed," he says.

As I walk out of the room, I hear him call my name. Or at least call out the word he thinks is my name, "Sha're? Could you stay after for a minute, please?"

"Sure," I say, waiting until all of the students have left the room before coming to stand before my teacher.

"That was a truly amazing paper. I've never seen such quality work done by a first year student before."

"Well, my husband is an anthropologist/linguist/archeologist/pretty much every other job in the world, and I've been working for him as an assistant and translator for the past three years," I say blushing.

"Husband?" he says.

"Yeah," I nod.

There is something in his face that I can't quite read. "You translate, too?"

"Well, mostly only from my native language, although I know a little of two other ones now," I admit.

"You are truly impressive. So where are you from?"

"Egypt," I tell him.

"So how did you end up marrying an American?"

I let out a sigh. In America, the 'how did you meet' story is pretty typical, and I don't exactly like the one that Daniel and I have to tell. "Well, he was a visitor to my village. He was wearing a really important cultural artifact, and well… he didn't know how important it was, but my father did. And I was sort of a gift."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"I know," I say with a shrug, "But it worked out great. I mean, I wouldn't trade my life for anything."

Whatever was in his face before is completely gone now. "I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner tonight to, uh… talk about your work in my class."

"Ok, sure," I say.

"Why don't you write down your address, and I'll pick you up around seven," he says.

-0-0-0-

"Hey, sweetie," Daniel says, after giving me a quick kiss as I come into the lab. Naima is taking her nap in the playpen, and her face has that adorable red wrinkly look it always gets when she sleeps.

"I got my paper back today," I say putting it on the table face down. I'm not sure if this is some American tradition or not, but I've decided that I am going to do it either way.

He flips it over, "Sha'uri, I knew you could do it!" he says with such force that I know it would be louder except for the fact that he doesn't want to wake Naima up. He gives me a hug, and almost lifts me off the ground with it.

"And there's something else! The professor asked me to discuss my work over dinner," I say.

Daniel's face isn't excited this time. It's decidedly uncomfortable.

"What?" I ask.

"I think… I think he's asking you out," Daniel says.

"I suppose so," I say.

"What?" Daniel says in a baby-quiet shriek.

"Well, I don't suppose that we're going to eat in," I say, befuddled as to what has gotten Daniel so upset.

"No, Sha'uri, I think your professor asked you on a date," he says.

"No way."

"I think so," he says.

"He knows I'm married, and he's my teacher, for crying out loud. He just wants to discuss my work."

"'For crying out loud'?" Daniel says, with a Teal'c-worthy eyebrow.

"Jack is good for my idioms," I say.

"Not so much," he says with a teasing face. Then he grows serious again, "I really, truly think that your professor asked you to go on a date with him, Sha'uri. I don't think you should go."

"Daniel, I've never seen you so possessive before. You said you were ok with me going to college," I protest.

"And I _am_ ok with you going to college. I'm not ok with you dating other men," he says.

"Daniel," I start to protest.

He takes a deep breath, "Ok, I can see I'm not going to convince you otherwise. You can just go 'out' with your professor and find out for yourself. But don't say I didn't warn you."

I nod my head, "Are you ready for lunch? I'll get something for the three of us from the mess?" I ask.

He nods his head, "No mac and cheese mascarading as chicken, please," he requests.

"Sure," I say, giving him a light peck on the lips before going to retrieve his food.

-0-0-0-

Daniel has been smirking all night. I have been studying my anthropology book hard in preparation for the dinner, and he seems to find this hilarious.

"You don't he'll ask questions about my other classes do you?" I ask nervously.

"No, I'm sure the questions he will be asking will be of a more personal nature," Daniel says, still wearing his smirk.

"You think he's going to ask about my research interests?" I ask.

"Probably not."

"About Egypt, then? What if I tell him something that's not true? Will you go over the differences between Egyptian and Abydonian culture one more time?" I plead.

"Sha'uri, you're going to be fine. There are lots of different parts of Egypt. If you tell him something that doesn't happen to be true about one part of Egypt, it's probably true of another. As long as you don't mention the Goa'uld, you'll be all right."

I nod my head. I'm feeling nauseous, but I can't really blame that on nerves. I've been a whole lot sicker with this baby that I was with Naima. I'm trying to keep Daniel from noticing, because I don't want him to worry. Morning sickness is certainly nothing to worry about.

The doorbell rings.

I answer the door to see Professor Manes wearing a suit and tie… and still two unmatched socks. How does he manage to do that every day? Does he do it on purpose? Does not he have anyone it his life that tells him he is not dressing correctly? Why doesn't he buy socks of all one color, like Daniel - all white, so that he never pairs a brown with a gray?

"Hi," I say.

"Are you ready?" he says, looking at Daniel, both surprised and confused.

"You have a good time," Daniel says, with a tone that is obviously meant to convey some message to Professor Manes.

-0-0-0-

I am growing more and more confused by this dinner. So far, Professor Manes hasn't mentioned one thing about my paper or anthropology or the university. He keeps making references to various parts of earth culture that I don't know much about. He talks about television, and movies, and sports. I'm used to this sort of thing. Whenever we have dinner with Jack and Sara, we have to talk about hockey, and television shows often come up when the Air Force wives get together. But I'm not very good at talking about these things.

He must have been able to tell, because before too long he asks, "What do you do besides school and work?"

"Spend time with my family and friends, and take care of our house, there is not much time for anything else," I says with a shrug.

"Your husband works you like a slave! At home, at work," he says in a frustrated voice. Then the voice grows softer and kinder, "If I had a wife as beautiful as you I would not work her so hard."

"He does not make me work hard! It was my own idea. I was the one who decided to get schooling, and," I giggle, "When I first came here he was so afraid I would start the kitchen on fire he did not want me to cook."

"See, he even tries to deny you an education. He wants you to be his little slave forever!" Professor Manes exclaims.

"You don't know what slavery is!" I say, losing what little patience I had. "Have you ever seen a boy of fourteen shot through the heart because he didn't complete his daily quota? Don't use that word until you know its meaning!"

"Whoa," he says, grabbing onto my hand, "I didn't mean to upset you. I was just saying that I could give you so much more than your husband could."

Crap. Daniel was right. He's holding my hand in a way that only Daniel has held it before him.

"Professor," I say, pulling my hand away, "Could you take me home now?"

"Why?" he asks.

"Is this a date?" I question back.

"Well, I wasn't quite ready to call it that, but…" he begins.

"I'm married."

"Accidently."

"Happily, and with two children."

"What?" he asks, with raised eyebrows.

"Well, one, and one on the way," I say touching my stomach.

"You're pregnant?" he asks.

"Yes," I say.

"I didn't know… I never imagined it was a real marriage. I just thought… you were his assistant."

"Well, I am, but I'm wife first and foremost. This was a mistake. Just when I think I understand American culture…"

"It was my fault. I was way out of line, asking out a married woman. I'm sorry, Sha're."

"It's all right, Professor," I mumble.

"No, it wasn't. I really shouldn't have been asking out a student anyway."

A new thought suddenly occurs to me. "Professor, the grade on my paper wasn't…"

"Oh, no that was all you, Sha're. I wouldn't let anything good or bad that happened between us affect your grade."

"Ok, I should really be getting home," I say, standing. I haven't ridden in a taxi since Daniel got a car nearly three years ago.

"Please, let me take you home?" he asks, and I nod my head.

-0-0-0-

Daniel is waiting for me at the door, and as soon as he sees my face, he isn't smirking, he actually looks worried.

"Sha'uri, what happened?" he asks.

I look at the floor. It isn't often that I've done that traditional obedience thing with Daniel, but if ever there is a time for it, it's now.

"I'm sorry, Dan'yel," I say. I let the accent slip on purpose, because I know he is a sucker for it.

"It's ok, you don't need to be sorry. Ah… what exactly are you sorry for?" he asks nervously.

"It was a date," I say.

"And?" he asks.

I don't answer him. I can't. I'm a married woman. A mother. And I just went on a date with my teacher.

"Sha'uri," he insists, using a single finger to lift my chin until my head is level with his, "What happened? Did he hurt you?"

I shake my head, "He held my hand," I say.

"And then you…" he prompts.

"I asked him to take me home. I told him I was happily married, and carrying your baby, with another one at home."

"And then he took you home?" Daniel asks.

I nod my head.

Daniel laughs, and pulls me into a hug, "And what exactly in that story did you think I was going to be mad about?"

"I thought… Daniel, I was on a date with another man!"

"But you didn't know that was what it was when you went on it, did you?" he asks.

"No, of course not."

"Then you did nothing wrong!" Daniel insists.

"Thank you, Daniel," I mutter.

"Now, did all of this happened before you finished eating?" he asks, leading me into the kitchen.

"We were… partway done," I explain.

"Well, Naima and I had a lovely pasta dish. Let me get you some," he says with a smile.


	35. In Sickness and in Health

"Are you ok?" Daniel asks, rubbing my back.

If I weren't currently throwing up things I ate back when Omm was still alive, I'd probably give him a snide remark. Seriously? Does this look ok to you?

As it is I just attempt to nod my head.

"You know I'm supposed to be leaving on a mission today. Do you want me to cancel it?" he asks, concerned.

I shake my head.

"Ok, so then should I call someone to come over?"

I shake my head again.

"Well, I can't just leave you like this!" he exclaims.

"I'm fine," I manage to get out before dry heaves rack my body. He looks doubtful, but he gives me a kiss on the temple before he leaves.

And I _am_ fine, I assure myself as I lay on the cool bathroom floor with a washcloth over my head.

-0-0-0-

I have to make Naima some food. I have to. It's been five hours since she ate, and she usually eats every three. I can do this. Cereal, that's all. Just pour it into the bowl, and…

I'm running to the bathroom again.

"Mommy?" a scared little voice says from the bathroom door a few minutes later.

"Honey, can you get Mommy the phone?" I ask, holding my hand up to my ear to show her what I mean. She nods her head and scurries away. A few minutes later she comes back with it. I dial a number and lean against the wall as I say, "Sara, could you please come take care of Naima? I'm not feeling well."

-0-0-0-

"Sha'uri," Anna says nervously, feeling my forehead. I try to focus on her from the bathroom floor. I'm confused. I thought I called Sara.

"Naima," I mutter.

"I know, Sara is getting her some food. She called me because you sounded really sick. And you look really sick."

"It's just morning sickness," I mutter.

"Pretty serious morning sickness," she says. "When is the last time that you ate?"

I try to remember, but the thought of food makes me nauseous. "Yesterday?" I guess.

"Morning, night?" Anna prompts.

"Morning, dry toast," I mutter.

"Honey, I think you need to go to the doctor, and get some nourishment in you."

"Naima," I moan.

"Sara will look after her, can I help you get up?" she asks. I nod my head, and she lifts me off the floor.

-0-0-0-

"Sha'uri," Daniel says mournfully as he comes into my hospital room, "I never should have left you."

I reach out my hand, and he quickly puts his in it, "I'm fine," I assure him.

"You're sitting in a hospital bed," he points out.

"I know, but they are going to let me out of here pretty soon."

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"Hyperemesis gravidarum. Just really bad morning sickness."

"Is the baby ok?" he asks in concern.

I nod, "Yes, they put me on the IV to make sure that it didn't get to short of nutrients, but it's just fine."

He brushes hair away from my forehead, "Is this going to keep happening?"

"It probably won't get much better for another two months," I confess.

"Why is this so much worse than with Naima?"

"I don't know. Usually the first child is the worst," I say.

He gives me his sympathy smile, and then pulls up a chair.

"Daniel, seriously, you can go home. I'm just going to be a couple more hours while they give me this IV, and then I will be following you."

"I'm going to stay as long as you have to," he assures me, getting into his chair.

"Sickness and health," I say.

-0-0-0-

"Sha'uri, General Hammond says that this tablet should be our top priority," he says. handing over something. "It's actually related to Latin, so it might be good practice for your class."

"Ok," I say, putting aside a rather dull hunk of Goa'uld relief with a bit of, well, relief. He hands me an English/Latin dictionary and points to the part that that I should start working on. He gave himself about two thirds of the tablet.

Suddenly he starts to rub his temples.

"Do you have a headache?" I ask.

He nods. I go over to grab him some medicine and a glass full of water. He takes the medicine, and then looks at me in alarm.

"Did you hear that?"

"Here what?" I ask.

"The voices, and the… it's like a little stargate is being dialed," he says as he walks over to a locker in his office.

"Daniel, I don't hear anything," I say with worry.

He throws the doors of the locker open, and then in awe says, "This isn't real." Suddenly the voice turns to screams, "Help, someone help!" he screams.

I grab onto his arm. "Daniel!" I scream.

He is acting like something is pulling him into the locker even though nothing is there. I let go of him, and rush over to the phone to call the infirmary.

-0-0-0-

Daniel's eyes flutter open.

"Are you ok?" I ask concerned.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" he asks.

"I don't know this word," I confess.

"They are when dead people stay around. But they don't stay around in a solid form, they are… spirits."

"My people share this belief with yours," I say.

"What about you, Sha'uri?" he asks.

"No, I don't believe in spirits. At least, not spirits that have communion with those of us who are still alive."

"Neither do I. So there has to be a logical explanation," he replies.

"What did you see?" I ask him.

"I keep seeing the dead Goa'uld from the massacre," he tells me, "I don't think they are dead."

"Daniel, I've seen their bodies," I remind him. I know that people sometimes have denial when they lose someone that they have loved. I just don't expect them to say it when they are grieving the loss of evil strangers.

"I translated a phrase on that tablet that I thought meant attack, but when I refined the translation I realized it means to enter by infiltration," he says.

"And you think that is what they are doing?" I prompt.

He nods.

"Through the locker in your lab, honey?" I ask.

He flinches. "I know it sounds nuts, but we've seen a lot of crazy things over the years. I think the Goa'uld must have figured out a way to turn themselves into pure energy… or something. Now they want me as a host."

My heart clenches at what that word implies. I will not let anyone take my husband as a host.

"Why are you the only one who can see them?" I ask.

"I don't know, maybe I am just nuts," he says with a smile that implies that he is trying to make it a joke. He fails. He looks at me nervously.

"Sickness and health, Daniel. We'll get it figured out," I assure him.

-0-0-0-

"Mrs. Jackson, we need to discuss your husband," Dr. McKenzie says. I follow him into his office, and am a little nervous to see that Dr. Fraiser is already there. I have already figured out that the more people that are involved in a discussion at the SGC, the worse it is.

"Dr. Jackson has experienced what I characterize as a first break psychotic episode, which may be manifesting full-blown hebephrenic schizophrenia," the doctor says. I struggled to understand the words. I hate having to admit it when I don't understand English, and it hardly ever happens to me anymore.

Dr. Fraiser takes pity on me, and says, "We think Daniel has schizophrenia. That is a kind of mental illness, and we think it might have been brought on by going through the stargate."

"Mental illness… so you think that Daniel is crazy?" I ask.

Janet nods slowly.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to assume some weird alien thing is going on?" I ask, "I mean, a lot of really weird things have happened to Daniel since he started working here."

"As much as I'd like to think that's all it is, the evidence just doesn't point that way. Daniel has paranoid delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations," Janet says softly, taking my hand. I yank it out of her grasp.

"Dr. Jackson's dopamine levels have increased in the left hemisphere of his brain. All these symptoms are textbook schizophrenia," Doctor McKenzie says.

"Ok, so what are you going to do to fix him?" I demand.

"Sha're, there is no cure for schizophrenia. There are some medicines that we can give, but people with schizophrenia don't tend to get better," Janet says.

"Then you have to find someone who has a cure. You have to find an ally that has this thing figured out," I demand.

"Sha're, it's possible there is no cure," Janet says.

"So you are going to give him some medicine, and let me take him home?" I ask.

"I don't think that would be safe for you and your family right now. We're going to set Daniel up in one of the VIP rooms for the time being," Doctor McKenzie says.

-0-0-0-

"Sha're?" Jack's voice says nervously on the phone. It causes me to immediately panic. I stayed with my husband in the VIP room for most of the day. When I went home, Jack took over. When I left, they were playing chess. It looked like the medicine was working, and that my husband was sane.

"What's wrong?"

"Daniel thought he saw a Goa'uld go into my neck. Then he passed out," Jack admits.

"Well, is he ok?"

"Ah… he regained consciousness, yeah, but he's not ok, Sha're," Jack says. My stomach sinks. "They want you to come down here and sign some papers."

I've never signed papers without Daniel telling me whether or not I should before. I swallow. "Ah… what are the papers about?"

"They want to put Daniel in a hospital."

"I thought you said he woke up."

"No, Sha're, on Earth we have hospitals people go to for mental illness."

"And they can make him better there?" I ask.

Jack clears his throat. When he talks he is angry, but the angry isn't directed at me. I'm not exactly sure who it is directed at, though. "No, they are going to lock him in a room where he can't hurt himself, and give him medicine."

"He can stay with me," I say.

"Sha're," Jack starts to protest.

"He is my husband, Jack! I am not going to ship him away. He will stay with me. I will take care of him," I say.

"Sha're, this is a lot for one person to handle."

"I don't think he's crazy," I say firmly.

"Sha're," he says, and it is clear that he believes that I am in denial.

"Jack, do you want me to name the things aliens have made you do over the years? Argos, right? Your wife believed you when you said that was not your fault. I'm doing the same for Daniel. He told me that he is not crazy. I believe him. You have to make them find a solution. You have to keep him at the SGC or he is coming home with me. I am not going to sign those papers," I say, hanging up the phone and heading to the SGC to make sure that my husband is safe.

I feel bad when Naima wakes up as I carry her to the car.

"Come on, baby, I have to drop you off at Anna's house."

"Why?" she asks, rubbing her eyes.

"Daddy needs me again," I tell her.

And I wonder if my stubborn belief in my husband is fair to my daughter.

-0-0-0-

Doctor McKenzie has finally stopped berating me for me "irresponsible" and "delusional" decision not to put my husband in the hospital. The compromise isn't much better, he's in the brig.

"Are you ok?" I ask, sitting on the floor next to him.

"You shouldn't be in here," he tells me.

"Why not?" I ask.

"I'm a head case," he says. "I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I tell him.

He gently takes my hand. "I lied to you," he whispers.

"What?"

"You asked me once if I had any family. I told you I didn't. I do. I have a grandpa. I didn't want you to know about him because he is living in a mental hospital. Now I am just like him. Sha're, you don't think our kids will get sick one day?"

"No, Daniel, and you think you are sick now? Before you thought there was something else going on," I say.

"I don't know, Sha'uri. I know that I am seeing and hearing things that are not there," his face looks panicked all of a sudden, "Do you hear the footsteps?"

"Daniel, they are not real. I need you to focus on things that are real. Focus on me, ok?" I say.

He nods his head grabbing onto my arms.

"Tell me about this grandpa," I say, "What do you remember about him?"

"He… used to work in Belize, mostly with Aztec things," he says, and I can tell it's taking all of his energy to focus on me instead of whatever he sees out of the corner of his eye.

"He was an archeologist like you?" I ask.

"Three generations. We are such a family business. One grandpa, two parents, you and I. Quite the legacy," he says.

"You're right," I say with a smile. The grip on my arms loosens a little.

"Are they gone?" I ask.

"No, but they don't matter," he says. "I just have to learn to ignore these things, and I can come home to you. We're going to be all right."

"Yes, we will be fine," I comfort.

-0-0-0-

"Daniel, they said you won't take your meds," I say.

His eyes are shinning with a new intensity. I don't know if it is a good sign or a bad sign, but I know that it is definitely a sign of something.

"That's because I'm better," he says.

Hope jumps up inside of me, but I don't know if I can believe it yet. "How do you know?"

"I don't completely understand it myself, but… I saw something come out of me and go into Teal'c. And then I heard Ma'chello's voice. Teal'c is sick, isn't he?" he asks with concern.

I jump a little bit startled at how exactly he knew that. "Yes."

"He got sick because something crawled out of me and into him. We have to do something _now_. I think Ma'chello made this stuff in order to get rid of the Goa'uld. Teal'c has a Goa'uld. I'm worried that it is going to hurt him."

"Are you sure? I mean, there _is_ a history of mental illness in your family. You're sure you're better?" he asks.

"I'm sure, Sha'uri. I would never ask you to let me out of here if I wasn't. I would never risk anyone's safety. Trust me."

-0-0-0-

"You're sure he's fine?" I ask Janet.

"Yes, all of his dopamine levels are back to normal," she says with a smile.

"He can come home now. He doesn't have work anymore, does he?" I ask.

"Sha'uri, I'm fine. I have to help figure out how to save Teal'c," Daniel says.

"No," I say.

"Sha're, I'm not even going to do the dangerous part. I am going to be safe in the observation room," he says with a smile.

"Daniel, you don't understand," I say, dissolving into tears and leaving the room.

He rushes after me, and holds onto my shoulders. "Hey, I don't understand, so explain it to me."

"I almost lost you," I whisper.

"I know, but you didn't. I'm fine," he tells me with the smile he uses to try get a smile from me.

"Until two hours ago, it looked like I was going to spend the rest of my life living away from my husband. I thought I was going to have to watch you get sicker and sicker for the rest of your life. Do you understand?" I ask.

"I would have been a burden," he mutters, sounding ashamed.

"Daniel, you are not listening to me. Put yourself in my shoes. What would you have thought? Felt?" I say.

His eyes suddenly get softer. "I understand. I would… die if something happened to you. I understand that what you were feeling. I'm sorry I put you through that. But right now, Teal'c is in danger. You understand? I have to help him, like you would help me. When that is over, I will take a few days off."

"Ok, but you'll be back tonight?" I ask.

He smiles, "I promise. I'm pretty excited to see my little girl again."


	36. Egypt

"Hey, what's going on?" I ask as I come out of Naima's room late one night. Dan'yel has looked serious ever since he got his mail today. I didn't mention it today, because Naima was in a really good mood, and I figured whatever was wrong was adult stuff anyway.

"Nothing," he says, barely glancing up from his anthropology journal.

"Try again, Dan'yel," I say, narrowing my eyes at him.

"It's nothing. I just got a letter from a friend of mine."

"Did something happen to him? You're sad," I say.

"No, it's just… in another life, it would be good news."

"Another life?" I ask.

He nods.

"A life where you weren't married?"

He looks at me with enough surprise that I know I am right.

"Was the letter from Sara?" I ask.

"Sara?" he asks, confused, "No, it's nothing like that."

"Then what exactly am I holding you back from?" I ask, sitting on the couch next to him.

"It's not you as much as the kids," he says, "And you're not holding me back."

"Just tell me what it is," I say.

"It's a dig in Egypt," he says.

"A dig? You want to leave the SGC?"

"No, I don't think I could ever do that. I couldn't just suddenly go to not knowing what is going on out there. I would never feel like you guys were safe now that I know what is out there. No, this is a two-week trip. I could take the time off."

"Ok, let's do this," I say.

"Honey, I can't leave you for that long," I raise my eyebrows at him, "I mean, when I'm not stranded off world."

"Or dead," I remind him.

"Right."

"But why would you be leaving us?"

"I can't take Naima to Egypt, or you… you'll be really pregnant by then. And you have school."

"I can take my studies along," I say with a smile.

"So you want me to do this?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say with a smile. "I want to visit this place on Earth I pretend to be from. It will be a homecoming of sorts."

"It will be a little bit of a homecoming for me as well," he says.

I give him a questioning look.

"I told you that my parents were archeologists, right?"

I nod.

"Well, I didn't live in America until after they died when I was eight. I mean, we traveled to the U.S. now and then for a museum opening or a semester long guest lecture position or something, but mostly we lived in Egypt. Well, I was born in Greece, but we moved before I turned two. So, when I have memories of my parents they are mostly memories of Egypt."

"Are you sure _you_ want to do this?" I ask.

"Yeah, I'll miss them, but it will be a good missing. But you know that they will speak a different language there, right? I mean, there will probably only be one or two people there that you'll be able to talk to."

"It's not like I haven't done that before, and it will be a good experience for Naima. She probably won't remember it, but it will still be good culture for her."

"Ok, I'll write to my friend saying that I accept this position."

-0-0-0-

This is the biggest machine yet.

"How does this airplane work?" I ask nervously.

"I'm not exactly sure," Daniel replies, putting his hand on the small of my back and trying to usher me closer to the plane.

"Well, I'm not going to go anywhere until you explain it to me," I say, digging my feet into the ground.

"Honey, it's safer than driving a car," he says.

"If I crash my car, we're not going to fall out of the sky," I inform him.

"Sha'uri, look at me," he says. I do. "I would not be asking my family to get on this if I wasn't a hundred percent sure it was safe."

"Dear, must I remind you of what you do for a living?"

"Yeah, but there's a difference between doing something myself, and sending my pregnant wife and little girl onto something. It's safe. I promise."

"Ok," I say with a weak smile, allowing him to usher me unto the 'plane.

-0-0-0-

I meant to study more Arabic before we got here. I wanted to surprise Daniel with my knowledge. But I had to get ahead in my school work (syllabi are handy things which tell you what work to do in advance). It helped that there was a long weekend in our trip, but I was still quite busy.

Daniel's old friend greets us. Apparently Daniel played with him when they were little kids. Daniel's parents were the ones that inspired Hamza to become an archeologist himself.

"As-salaam 'alaykum," Hamza says.

Daniel is about to translate, but I stop him by replying, "Wa 'alaykum salaam."

His jaw drops, and he takes a step away "When did you learn Arabic?"

"Only a little," I say in Arabic. I know it doesn't make perfect sense, but it's the best I can do.

Hamza laughs, and claps Daniel on the back, saying something that contains the worlds "smart" and "wife".

"Actually, Akh, she is much more brilliant that I am," he says in both languages, as he looks at me fondly.

"Daddy," Naima complains. Daniel's been carrying her over his shoulder, and she is just now starting to wake up.

"Your child?" Hamza says.

Daniel nods, and Hamza reaches out his hands for her. I'm not sure how my daughter is going to deal with waking up in a stranger's arms. She opens up her eyes, glances over to make sure that we're still here, and then snuggles into his chest.

A slew of words come out of Hamza's mouth all said in a reverent tone. Daniel starts to translate, but I assure him that I got the gist of it based on the tone.

We start walking, and Daniel and Hamza are catching up. I'm starting to be reminded of when I first moved to Earth.

Suddenly a question upsets Daniel.

"What?" I ask him.

"Ah… he asks where you're from. He'll know that Abydos is a lie," Daniel says.

"Abydos?" Hamza says with a shake of his head, "No," and then more words I don't understand.

Daniel kicks in with more words I don't understand before turning to me. "I told him there is a place called Abydos in Canada."

"_Canada?"_ I squeal.

He shrugs, "It worked for Cassie."

"Right, but that was different. She spoke English."

"So do you!"

"Right, but it's not my native language."

"It's not mine either."

"What?" I gulp in surprise.

"I mean, my parents did speak English to me when I was young. But mostly I spoke Arabic."

I try to picture my husband as a little boy in the desert, speaking this harsh tongue.

"Naima, sweetie, you are in a different country than you've ever been in before. Daddy grew up here," I tell her.

She sticks her head above Hazma's shoulder, and looks around.

"It's like Mommy's home," she says.

She knows this only from the pictures, because a three year old memory isn't long.

"Yes, sweetie, it is like Mommy's home."

-0-0-0-

"I want to go home," Naima whines.

"I know, baby," and with the added weight of a pregnancy and the heat do I ever, "We'll be home in a couple of days."

"I'm glad we did this," Daniel says, as he brushes sand off a wall with a tiny broom. I could do it faster, but all my suggestions to that effect have made him cringe and inform me that I would damage the artifacts.

"Me to," I say.

"Did you ever wish it was like this all the time?" he asks.

"You want to move here?" I ask him in surprise.

"I was thinking about if we'd stayed on Abydos. It would have been like this."

I laugh. You'd think having an anthropologist for a husband he'd understand our culture a little better than that. "My culture isn't really like this one."

"That's not really what I mean. I know your culture is really different from an archeology dig in modern Egypt. I just mean this… not worrying if the world is toppling in over our shoulders. It's a nice change."

"We should carve out more time for relaxing," I tell him guiltily.

He smiles absently at me, and touches my face, "I wasn't just talking about me. You've been relaxed here. Sometimes I worry about how much worry you go through."

"Then you just focus on staying safe."


	37. Babies

"Are you sure you want to go?" I ask Sara. Lainie is having a baby shower. I know that these kinds of things are hard for Sara. She badly wants to have a baby. Even now that she has a daughter, she still wants a baby.

"I'm fine," she says with a smile.

"I could pretend I'm sick, and you had to take care of me," I say. I'm not actually sure if hanging out with me at eight months pregnant and my toddler is going to be better than a baby shower.

"I'm really fine," Sara insists.

And she looks strangely fine. "Why are you so fine?" I ask. She hasn't ever been this ok with any of the other baby showers. A hand touches her stomach quickly, fleetingly.

"Sara! Are you…" I stop myself just in time. I don't need to rub her ace in the fact that she isn't having a baby. Particularly today.

"You can't tell Jack," she whispers conspiratorially.

"Seriously? You're having a baby?" I gush.

She nods her head.

"Oh my gosh! Why wouldn't you tell him? He's going to be thrilled."

"I will just… we lost a baby once, Sha're."

I frown, "Jack told me. There aren't any that he doesn't know about, are there?"

She shakes her head, "No, but he's not going not going to lose another child, if I can help it. He's not going to know about this until I'm further along."

"I think you should tell him, Sara. He did this with you and Cassie. He could have used you in the hours next to Cassie's hospital bed. If you're that scared about this baby, you probably need him by your side."

"I'll be all right," she assures me.

"Ok, then I guess you're stuck with me by your side. I want to come to all your appointments and things until he knows."

She nods. I put my hand on my expansive stomach.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't think it's anything," I say. Although, I'm starting to get suspicious I'm in labor. I'm not sure yet, it doesn't hurt as much as it did with Naima, and it's early yet.

"Where are our husbands?" she asks.

"Really dangerous mission," I say honestly. But I'm sparing her from a lot, too. They went with the Tok'ra on a mission to hell to save a Tok'ra operative.

"If you decide you are in labor, I'm on 'by your side' duty until your husband gets back."

"Thanks," I say.

-0-0-0-

"Thank you guys so much," Lainie gushes as she finishes opening presents.

"Sara," I whisper.

"Yeah," she says, her eyes still focused on our friend.

"I think I'm going to have to take you up on that offer."

"What offer?" she asks, looking at my face for the first time.

"A ride to the hospital," I say.

"You're in labor!" she exclaims, so loud that the whole room is focusing on me.

"I'm going to call Walter and see if he can recall your husband," Anna declares.

"I'm driving her to the hospital," Sara says.

"I'll pick Naima up from day care," Lainie says.

Catherine really wasn't kidding when she that military wives were the best community you could ever hope for.

-0-0-0-

"She's beautiful," Sara says, looking at my baby.

"You want to hold her?" I ask.

"Ok," she says.

Suddenly the door burst open. "I escaped from Janet," Daniel says.

"Are you ok?" I ask, concerned. He looks really rough.

"I'm fine. Show me my baby," he says. Sara happily obliges, and then quietly leaves the room. She's probably going to check on her own husband. If Daniel had been more thoughtful, he would have told her how he was doing.

"Are you ok?" I ask again, more firmly.

"I'm not the one who just had a baby," he says evasively.

"What did happen to you?" I ask reaching for his hand.

It's shaking as it holds the baby, "Just a little torture," he says, attempting to make it sound light and joking, but his voice shakes at the end.

"Daniel," I say softly.

His eyes meet mine, "They, ah," he licks his lips, "Drugged me, and I saw you Sha're. You were asking me to tell you about work. You… said you were going to take the kids and leave me if I wouldn't let you in on some classified stuff," his voice breaks again.

"Hey," I say, scooting over and pulling him onto the bed next to me. To be perfectly honest, he probably needs to be laying down more than I do right now, "I'm not leaving you," I say wrapping an arm around him, "Did I make you give away information?"

"No," he says softly shaking his head.

"I'm glad you're back."

Janet rushes into the room. "Damn it, Daniel!" she says.

"I made him lay down," I offer.

"Yeah, well, he needs to go back on base. You still have alien drugs in your system."

"I also have a new daughter," he says.

Janet's face goes soft. "Ok, fine, five minutes, and then I'll get you back on base. For at least the night, maybe another day." Then she walks into the hallway, but I know she hasn't gone far.

"Maybe we'll have a homecoming all together," I say.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here when she was born," he says.

"Not your fault. I'm sorry the Goa'uld used me to torture you."

"I have something that might make you feel better. But I'm not supposed to tell you."

"Tease," he mutters.

"You can't tell Jack," I say.

He gives me a strange look, "Why do I need to keep a secret from him?"

"Sara is trying to protect him. He's going to know eventually," I say.

"Spill," he says with a smile.

"She's pregnant."

"Who?"

"Sara."

"No way!" he says, looking at me, "Seriously?"

"Yep, and you're going to have to keep this secret for a couple of months."

He grins. "Sha're - we do make beautiful children, don't we?" he asks, looking at our baby cradled between us.

"We do, and since she insisted on coming early, we don't have a name for her yet."

"I was thinking Omm," he says.

I laugh, "You know that in my language that word means mom, right?"

"I know, but most people wouldn't know that. I think it's pretty, and you miss her."

"I can't name my daughter 'Mommy', but if you want to reach into the past, my sister's name was Eshe."

"Eshe, I like it. What does it mean?"

"Ironically, it means life."

"Perfect," he says.

"Ok, I need my patient now," Janet says, poking her head into the room.

"See you soon, Dan'yel," I say, giving him a kiss.


	38. A Hundred Days

Daniel rushes into my lab and grabs onto me, pulling me into a tight hug.

"Hey, what happened?" I ask after I've held him for a while.

"Fire rain," he says.

"Ok, apparently I don't know your language as well as I thought."

"Ah, that was the local name for it. It was a meteor shower. We lost Jack."

"Jack died?"

"No, ah… maybe?" he says.

"What happened?" I demand.

"Meteors were falling from the sky. Jack went back to save some kid. We can't make contact with the gate."

"So we'll find a ship," I say.

"We're trying, but you know that we can't always get a hold of our allies when we need to."

"So the gate is probably just buried. All we have to do is wait for Jack to unbury it."

"Maybe, but he might not know exactly where it is. And the gate might have been destroyed."

"I don't want to hear this. We have to get him back!" I say, trying to head to the gateroom. Eshe lets out a wail of protest as I move. For some reason this happens every time I move.

"Honey," he says, touching my arm trying to calm me.

"He doesn't know he's a father," I say.

Daniel pulls me into another hug. "I know honey."

"I should have told him."

"Your friend asked you not to. It was her choice not to tell him, not yours."

"He might not have done it if he'd known," I protest.

"Oh, honey, he was being Jack. He would have gone back to save that kid no matter what."

I know he's right, but I still don't like it.

"I have to tell Sara."

"No, you don't," he says, holding me closer, "You could have me do it. Or you could wait, and she would be officially informed by General Hammond."

I shake my head. I know that I'd rather hear it from one of my friends, and this is what military wives do for each other.

"You'll watch the kids?" I ask, pulling away from him.

I see a tiny flinch. Daniel is afraid to be left alone with the baby. It's been like this ever since Eshe was born. Her older sister never caused this fear in her father. Even though the fear pains me, I do understand it. Eshe is a tough baby.

She cries before you feed her, and for an hour afterword. Sometimes, she even cries when you are feeding her. We switched her from breast milk to three different kinds of formula since her doctor thought it was intestinal difficulties. The last one we switched to helped a little, but nothing helped much.

She also cries whenever she isn't being held. But when you are holding her, and make the slightest move there are tears anyway.

Daniel really can't take care of her, and work, so I usually take her wherever I go unless it's to college classes. But this is really not the sort of conversation that you drag along a two month old baby for.

"I'll be back as soon as I can be," I assure him.

"You take as much time as you need to," he assures me.

-0-0-0-

As Sara opens the door I can't help but glance at her stomach. Her baby bump is just large enough that you can see it if you know it is there, but small enough that you can't see it if you don't know it is there. She couldn't have waited much longer before she told him. Now, he might never know.

"Missing, dead, or injured?" she asks.

"Missing," I say.

She ushers me into the house. She sticks her head into the kitchen and says, "Cassie, can you take your homework upstairs?"

"What's wrong, Mom?" Cassie asks in concern.

"Honey, I'll tell you what's going on after Sha'uri leaves. But Jack is going to be alright," Sara says with a weak smile that even someone is far dumber than her daughter would not believe.

Nonetheless, Cassie heads up the stairs. As soon as she is out of sight the two of us head back to the living room and sit down right next to each other on chairs. I wrap my arms around her, offering her as much comfort as I can.

"So is he stranded on an alien planet?" she asks.

I'm not sure how honest I want to be with her. Then I look into her face, and I put myself completely in her shoes. I would want honest. Gentle honesty, but honesty nonetheless, "We hope so."

"What exactly does that mean?"

"There was a meteor shower. They were evacuating people off of the planet. Jack went back to save a kid. They can't get through the gate. It's really too soon to tell if the problem is the gate being buried or… something else. We might also be able to borrow a ship from an ally. We're going to get this figured out."

She puts her hand on her stomach, "I was going to tell him when he came back from the mission. He had a few days off. Now, he… he's stuck somewhere and he doesn't even know," she sighs.

"It's ok," I say.

"No it isn't! My husband is missing!" she yells.

"I know he is," I say.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be yelling at you," she says softly.

"Go ahead and yell if it makes you feel any better," I tell her.

I hear the floor creak in the corner of the room. I look up, and I see Cassie standing there.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"Come here," Sara says holding out her hands.

"How much did you hear?" I ask her.

"All of it?" Sara says.

Cassie nods as she crawls onto her mother's lap.

"Do you have any questions, honey?" Sara asks.

"What doesn't Dad know about?" Cassie asks.

"I'm having a baby," Sara says.

Cassie smiles, but it was a short lived smile. "Is Jack ok?" Cassie asks me. I really wish she'd directed the question at her mother. I glance at Sara for clues to how honest I'm supposed to be with this question. Based on Sara's face I should probably be pretty honest.

"We don't know, honey. All we really know was that he was stranded in some pretty dangerous circumstances," I tell her.

"He's probably digging his way back to us right now," Sara assures her.

-0-0-0-

I feel Teal'c's presence standing at my doorway.

"Do you need something?" I ask.

"Samantha Carter will not return to her residence," Teal'c says.

"Ah," I stammer. I am feeling uncomfortable with this conversation. "You're having a lover's spat?"

Teal'c raises an eyebrow, "Samantha and I have not celebrated any nuptials. Our residences remain separate."

"Ok, so what are you worried about?" I ask.

"Samantha Carter will not leave her work long enough to slumber."

"Oh," I say. That sounds like Sam. I know she has been working on something that could get Jack back. I don't begin to pretend to understand what this thing is, but I do know that it is Jack's best chance of ever getting home. "I'll do what I can," I assure him.

He catches my arm as I walk past him through the doorway. "Do you think I should ask Samantha Carter to partake in nuptials?" he asks.

"What?" I stammer in surprise.

"As an alternative, I could partake in the Earth custom of living together as if we were joined without being joined," he says, but he looks like he is very uncomfortable with the idea.

"I don't think so," I say.

Teal'c is quiet for a bit. I don't rush off to send Sam home right away, but wait for him to say whatever he is about to say. "What is your speculation on the probability Samantha Carter will agree to be pledge-bonded to me?"

"You're asking me if I think she'd marry you?" I ask.

He nods.

"Well, I suppose that all depends on the way you propose and your motives," I say.

He looks confused. Or at least as confused as you can look without a facial expression.

"Do you love her?" I ask.

He looks more than a little offended as he says, "I thought my actions would have made that question unnecessary."

"Of course it does, Teal'c, but I bet you she would like to hear it," I say before I leave the room.

-0-0-0-

"Sam, when is the last time you've been home?" I ask.

"Teal'c's taking care of Jakey," she says without looking up.

My heart clenches when I realize exactly how much his actions have been showing her his love. "Ok, but you still need sleep."

"I need to get Jack home," she says.

"And you can probably do that better if you get a little bit of sleep," I say.

"I know, and I sleep," she says gesturing toward the couch in her room. It's at this point that I take a good look around. The amount of trays from the mess on her table tell me this is where she's been taking her meals. A toothbrush and soap next to the emergency shower tell me more about personal habits than I needed to know.

"Sam, you have to take a little bit of time for yourself."

"You don't get it, Sha'uri! You've never been at war! You don't leave someone behind. Jack is the one who taught me that. And he's been left behind!"

"You're talking about the time with the crystal form of Jack?" I ask, confused.

"Well, that time too, but I was talking about the time he was a prisoner of war."

I know these words are supposed to shock me. And they do, just by her tone. But I still need to ask. "I'm sorry, I don't know those words?"

Her eyes tear up, "He was fighting in Iraq, and the enemy caught him. They kept him for a long time. They… ah… tortured him. You know that word?"

I nod.

"So I just wanted to make sure that that never happened to him again," she finishes.

"He's not getting tortured," I tell her.

"No, but he can't get see his family."

"You're not seeing your family," I point out.

"I told you! Teal'c is taking care of Jakey," she says.

"Ok, but that still means that you aren't going to see your son. Besides, he isn't your only family."

"Mark lives so far away," she begins, but she looks at me in suprise, "You mean Teal'c? He's not family."

"How long has he been taking care of your son?" I ask.

"He's my… boyfriend, my teammate, my best friend, but we're not family."

I bite my lip; it's not my place to say anything. But I feel protective of Teal'c. He may not make very many facial expressions, but he is very sensitive to facial expressions of people around him. If she doesn't look happy when he asks her, he'll be unbelievably wounded. Even if she just looks surprised, it is going to hurt him.

"What?" she asks suspiciously.

"You ever think about having a family?" I ask.

She sighs, and rolls her eyes! She doesn't love him? This will kill him. "Did Teal'c get attached to one of the orphan refugees?"

"Ah… no," I stammer.

A look of confusion comes back over her face, "Then how could my family be expanding?"

"I'm thinking there is a chance it will grow by two Jaffa," I mutter.

She jumps away from me, "This better not be a trick to get me out of the lab!" she exclaims.

"It's not," I assure you, "But we might be getting ahead of ourselves. It's just something he's considering."

"Wow," she says, stunned. "I should probably not be surprised. I mean, he brings me three meals a day, and has been doing everything for my son, including bringing him for nightly visits. He even sits here for hours a day. He doesn't say a word, just sits there quietly and works on his paperwork."

"So if he asks?" I ask.

"I'll be engaged," she says.

We both squeal. "You have to get some sleep, though," I say.

"Yeah, I'll go home. I am just going to finish this up though. I can't just leave a teammate."

"That's fine, as long as you take care of yourself," I say.

"Thanks, Sha're."


	39. The Moon

Sara grabs onto my arm. I pull her a bit closer to me. I'm definitely going to have to give my husband a primer on how to talk to Walter. Seriously, if a member of your team has been missing for four months*, you make sure you mention his health in the call home.

"I'm sure he's fine," I assure her.

She nods her head, but looks unconvinced.

Jack walks through the gate, and she rushes toward him. She forgets to let go of my hand first, so she pulls me toward them. I free myself just before she flings herself crying into his arms.

"Miss me, did you?" he teases.

"Don't you ever do that again," she sobs.

"I'm sorry," he says, kissing her temple.

"You're ok?" she asks, pulling away to look at him.

"Fine. I wasn't hurt at all. Unless you count the moonshine."

She runs her hand down his face.

"Are we going to talk about the fact that you're pregnant?" he asks. She moves his hand onto her stomach. "How pregnant are you?" he asks, smiling.

"Seven months. It's a boy," she replies.

He pulls her close, and as he hugs her I see his happy face. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she mutters.

"You were trying to protect me, weren't you?" he asks.

She nods.

"How many were there?"

"What?"

"How many babies have there been that I didn't know about?" he asks softly.

"None. I was just worried about it, since, you know, the one miscarriage that you knew about. I just didn't want to have to do that to do you again. And then you were missing, and I really wished that I'd told you."

"It's ok, I get a little less anticipation, but I still have the rest of my life with a kid," he says.

-0-0-0-

"Can I steal your wife for dinner?" Sam asks as she walks into the lab.

"Of course," Daniel says.

"I have a test tomorrow, so I can't stay out too long," I warn.

"This will be worth it," she says, eagerly grabbing onto my arm.

"Oh my goodness! Did he propose?"

She nods.

"Was it great?" I ask.

"So romantic!" she exclaims.

"Teal'c was romantic?" Daniel asks skeptically.

"He took me to the moon," Sam says

"If that is some kind of metaphor for something that happened in the bedroom, I really don't want to hear about it," Daniel says, making a face.

"No," Sam says, making a face that hints at the fact that there has been no bedroom between them, "See, when I was a little girl I really wanted to go to the moon. I was way too young to actually remember any of the Apollo missions. By the time I was old enough to think about going to the moon, people had stopped doing it. But more than anything, I wanted to. That was why I got interested in space in the first place. And now I've done amazing things. Things that are far more amazing that simply going to the moon. But I still haven't gone to the moon. And then I come home from work yesterday, and he'd converted my basement into the Sea of Tranquility."

"How, exactly?" Daniel asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Lots of silica, although I suspect he used some sand as filler," she says.

"That's a messy proposal," Daniel says.

"And he borrowed a real astronaut suit from the NASA! And the ring is a meteor that actually fell from the moon."

"Wow! Almost makes me wish I'd actually been proposed to instead of just given as a gift," I tease. Suddenly Daniel's face looks stricken at the words, and I try desperately to take them back, "Honey, it's ok. The proposal doesn't matter. The only thing that is important is the marriage, and we have a great one," I say, putting my hand around him. He puts his arm around me as well, but I can tell that it is only halfhearted.

"So can I see your moon ring?" I ask.

She holds up her hand to let me admire it. It really isn't much to look at, but I can tell she loves it so I just go with it.

-0-0-0-

I know that something is up, but I just can't place my finger on it. Sara has been smirking mercilessly the whole evening. After work, we went on a brief shopping trip. It's the first time I've been shopping without children grabbing random items in years. Of course, I didn't have all that much experience with Earth shopping before I had kids, so this was a nice break.

If it were near my birthday, I would suspect that they were planning a surprise birthday party. But it is so many months away from my birthday, that the though can't even cross my mind.

Sara drops me off at the door, but doesn't offer to come in with me. So whatever this plan is, I know that it doesn't involve her.

I open the door up, and the living room is covered in poppy flowers. We don't have flowers on Abydos. It's actually sort of odd. Most of the time when the Goa'uld took people to a new planet, they terraformed it first. They somehow missed that with Abydos. So our flora is completely different from Earth's, and flowering plants never evolved there.

Animals always vary a lot more from planet to planet, and it probably has to do with the reluctance of primitive animals to go through the stargate. The Goa'uld would have had to carry them in ships, and they probably thought that was too much of a bother.

Anyway, back to flowers. I have been obsessed with flowers ever since I came to Earth. Not the traditional ones, though, roses and carnations and daisies do nothing for me. But when I see a tulip or a lily or most of all a poppy I just flip my lid. Now a poppy, that is the sort of flower that you can write poems about.

Our living room is covered in poppy petals two inches thick.

"Daniel!" I gasp.

"Sha'uri, will you marry me?" he asks.

"We've been married for four years!" I exclaim.

"I know, but I never asked you to marry me. And this isn't just a romantic symbolic… Sha'uri, you didn't have much of a choice in our first marriage. I want you to… choose me."

"Daniel, I have," I say, "I love you! It would kill me if I couldn't be with you. You're my husband."

"To have and to hold," he says, holding out his hands to me.

I fall into his open hands, "For better or worse."

"Richer or poorer."

"As long as we both shall live."

***Sam was distracted by a child and Teal'c. She also wasn't in love with Jack in this version. So it took her a little bit longer to get Jack back than it did in the series.**


End file.
